PUBLICATIONS 

OF  THE 

NORTH  CAROLINA  HISTORICAL  COMMISSION 

BULLETIN  No.  7 


ADDRESSES 


AT 


THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  BUST 


OF 


WILLIAM  A.  GRAHAM 


JANUARY  12.  1910 


BUST  OF  WILLIAM    A.  GRAHAM 


ADDRESSES 


AT 


THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  BUST 


OF 


William  A.  Graham 


BY  THE 


NORTH  CAROLINA  HISTORICAL  COMMISSION 


IN 


THE  ROTUNDA  OF  THE  STATE  CAPITOL 


Delivered  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  January  12,  1910 


RALEIGH 

EDWARDS   &    BROUGHTON    PRINTING    CO. 

1910 


The  spirit  of  a  people  is  the  history  of  a  people 
impersonated  in  the  life  of  a  people.  If  there  is 
no  history  of  a  people,  there  is  no  spirit  of  a 
people. — Thomas  W.  Mason. 


The  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission 


J.  BRYAN  GRIMES,  Chairman 

RALEIGH 

W.  J.  PEELE,  Raleigh  M.  C.  S.  NOBLE,  Chapel  Hill 

D.  H.  HILL,  Raleigh  THOMAS  W.  BLOUNT,  Roper 


R.  D.  W.  CONNOR,  Secretary 

RALEIGH 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressesatunvei81nort 


THE  GRAHAM  BUST 


In  the  rotunda  of  the  Capitol  of  North  Carolina  are  eight 
niches,  designed  to  hold  the  busts  and  statues  of  eight  of  the 
eminent  sons  of  the  State.  Completed  nearly  three-quarters 
of  a  century  ago,  these  niches  remained  empty  until  1910, 
silently  protesting  against  the  failure  of  the  State  to  perform 
one  of  her  highest  and  most  important  duties,  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  memories  of  the  founders  and  builders  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

Convinced  that  the  State  was  unconsciously  doing  herself 
a  serious  injustice  by  her  negligence,  the  North  Carolina 
Historical  Commission,  charged  with  the  duty  of  preserving 
the  history  of  the  State,  on  October  23,  1907,  adopted  the 
following  resolution : 

"Resolved,  That  the  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars  be  set 
aside  out  of  the  funds  of  the  Commission,  to  be  expended 
for  a  marble  bust  of  William  A.  Graham,  to  be  set  up  in  one 
of  the  niches  in  the  rotunda  of  the  State  Capitol,  and  that  the 
Secretary  be.  instructed  to  have  the  bust  executed  in  the  best 
manner  by  some  reputable  sculptor,  as  soon  as  possible." 

In  accordance  with  this  resolution  a  contract  was  made 
with  Mr.  Frederick  W.  Ruckstuhl,  of  New  York,  who  exe- 
cuted the  bust  and  delivered  it  to  the  North  Carolina  His- 
torical Commission  in  December,  1909.  Upon  the  invita- 
tion of  the  Historical  Commission,  Messrs.  Frank  Nash  and 
Thomas  W.  Mason  consented  to  deliver  addresses  upon  the 
occasion  of  the  unveiling.  On  the  evening  of  January  12, 
1910,  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Governor  of  North  Carolina,  the  members 
of  the  State  Historical  Commission,  the  members  of  the  Gra- 
ham family,  the  Grand  Lodge  of  Masons  of  North  Carolina, 
and  a  large  audience,  the  bust  was  set  up  in  the  northwestern 
niche  of  the  rotunda  on  the  first  floor  of  the  Capitol,  and 
unveiled  by  Master  William  A.  Graham,  Junior,  the  Fourth. 
The  ceremonies  of  the  occasion  consisted  in  the  delivery  of 
the  addresses  printed  in  this  bulletin. 


INTRODUCTORY  ADDRESS 


BY  J.  BEYAN  GEIMES 

Chairman  of  the  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

North  Carolinians  have  been  careless  in  preserving  their 
history,  and  that  we  have  been  neglected,  and  in  some  cases 
have  been  misrepresented  by  historians  of  the  country,  has 
been  largely  our  own  fault.  We  must  remember  that  to 
receive  proper  credits  we  must  keep  our  own  accounts.  We 
have  been  lacking  in  self-appreciation  and  wanting  in  a 
proper  State  pride,  which  is  to  some  extent  due  to  the  fact 
that  we  were  ignorant  of  the  accomplishments  and  heroic 
deeds  of  our  own  people. 

The  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission  is  collecting 
from  every  available  source  data  and  records  pertaining  to 
the  history  of  North  Carolina,  and  stimulating  and  encour- 
aging historical  investigation  and  research  in  every  way  in 
its  power,  and  now  our  history  is  being  more  thoroughly 
studied  and  written  than  ever  before.  The  State  Historical 
Commission  believes  that  one  of  the  most  powerful  stimu- 
lants in  arousing  State  pride  and  proper  appreciation  of  our 
own  great  men  is  to  be  found,  not  merely  in  recording  their 
great  deeds,  but  also  in  preserving  their  forms  and  features 
in  marble  and  in  bronze.  Inaugurating  this  movement, 
therefore,  the  State  Historical  Commission  will  unveil  this 
evening  a  marble  bust  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  Carolinians — 
William  A.  Graham. 

Accordingly  the  Commission  has  invited  a  scholar  and  his- 
torian, Mr.  Frank  Nash,  to  address  you  upon  the  life  and 
services  of  Governor  Graham,  and  Capt.  Thomas  W.  Mason, 
who,  as  soldier,  statesman  and  orator,  is  known  and  beloved 
by  all  North  Carolinians,  to  speak  upon  the  "Value  of  His- 
torical Memorials  Among  a  Democratic  People." 


WILLIAM  ALEXANDER  GRAHAM 


BY  FKANK   NASH 


INTRODUCTION 

"  Office  is  the  most  natural  and  proper  sphere  of  a  public  man's  ambi- 
tion, as  that  in  which  he  can  most  freely  use  his  powers  for  the  common 
good  of  his  country." — Lord  Palmerston. 

Ill  recent  years  it  has  been  the  endeavor  of  some  writers  to 
strain  the  facts  of  history  a  little  in  order  that  JSTorth  Caro- 
lina may  appear  to  have  been  first  in  some  great  political, 
or  other,  movement.  This  not  only  makes  our  State  motto 
an  hypocrisy,  but  it  has  no  sound  moral  basis,  is  untrue  in 
fact,  and  is  foolish  from  the  standpoint  of  philosophy.  That 
she  was  first  at  Bethel  was  an  accident ;  that  she  was  farthest 
at  Gettysburg  and  last  at  Appomattox,  means  daring,  but 
steady,  courage  and  staunch  unfailing  fidelity.  Indeed  the 
things  in  which  she  was  last  have  done  her  more  credit  than 
those  in  which  she  was  first.  I  do  not  like  to  think  of  her 
as  a  meretricious,  volatile,  impulsive  figure,  but  as  a  noble, 
steadfast  one,  unadorned  (certainly  by  gewgaws  and  jim- 
cracks),  and  like  the  Mother  of  the  Gracchi  pointing  to  her 
sons  as  her  jewels.  Certainly  she  has  a  right  to  be  proud  of 
them,  for,  at  no  time  from  the  days  of  Glasgow  to  the  days 
of  the  Carpetbagger  and  from  the  days  of  the  Carpetbagger 
to  the  present,  did  any  of  these  sons  prey  upon  her.  Pecula- 
tion and  fraud  in  public  life  may  have  existed  elsewhere, 
but  not  in  North  Carolina. 

In  this  paper  I  try  to  depict  one  of  those  sons  as  the  most 
prominent  figure  amid  the  scenes  in  which  he  lived  and 
worked,  and  in  the  company  of  those  who  lived  and  worked 
with  him.  I  want,  too,  to  show  what  he  was  and  what  he 
stood  for,  as  well  as  what  he  did,  for  it  is  not  so  much  the 
material  as  it  is  the  spiritual,  that  gives  to  men  real  power 
and  renders  them  immortal.     iRot  that  activity  and  energy 


8  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

are  to  be  contemned,  far  from  it — slothful  in  business  can 
never  be  predicated  of  the  truly  great  and  good — but  because 
it  is  the  subtle  and  silent,  but  pervading,  influence  of  char- 
acter, only,  that  gives  action,  force  and  efficiency  for  good. 
The  story  of  William  A.  Graham's  life  is  well  worth  the 
telling  for  what  he  did,  but  much  more  for  what  he  was. 
The  writer  is  very  conscious  that  it  has  not  been  told  ade- 
quately in  the  following  pages.  The  final  word  about  him 
can  not  be  said  until  his  literary  remains  are  collected  and 
published  with  his  correspondence. 

MIS  ANTECEDENTS 

William  A.  Graham  was  no  less  fortunate  in  the  race  from 
which  he  sprang  than  in  his  immediate  ancestry.  The  Scotch 
Presbyterians,  located  in  Ireland  by  James  I,  and  the  Eng- 
lish by  Cromwell,  made  that  composite  race  which  has  been 
for  some  time  known  to  history  as  the  Scotch-Irish.  During 
three  or  four  generations  they  lived  in  Ireland  among  a  people 
hostile  in  faith  and  differing  in  language,  in  ideals,  in  aims 
and  in  temperament.  The  Saxon  was  the  representative  of  a 
stern,  unyielding,  but  essentially  uplifting  Calvinism,  while 
the  Celt  was  the  representative  of  all  the  superstition  and 
ignorance  of  an  unenlightened  Romanism.  The  one  had  a 
faith  so  clear,  so  earnest,  so  vital  that,  in  his  worship  he  dis- 
carded nearly  all  symbol,  while  the  other's  faith  was  so 
obscured  by  false  conceptions  that  only  a  sensuous  and  sym- 
bolic worship  could  appeal  to  his  inferior  nature ;  the  one, 
even  in  his  superstitions,  dealing  only  with  things  supernal, 
while  the  other  made  to  himself  gi-aven  images,  likenesses  of 
things  in  heaven  above  and  in  the  earth  beneath,  and  bowed 
down  to  them  and  worshiped  them ;  the  one  industrious  and 
thrifty,  doing  with  all  his  might  what  his  hands  found  to  do, 
the  other  thriftless,  industrious  only  by  fits  and  starts,  con- 
tent, in  the  midst  of  degrading  poverty,  to  live  among  swine 
and  fowls ;  the  one  sensitive  about  his  rights,  and  ready  in  the 
fear  of  God  to  defend  them  with  a  calm,  cool,  unflinching 


William  A.  Guaham,  9 

courage ;  the  other,  a  serf  to  his  lord,  a  child  to  his  priest,  a 
willing  servant  to  his  friend  and  a  savage  to  his  foe,  his  emo- 
tions a  sensitive  harp  that  responded  to  every  wind  of  passion,^ 

What  wonder  that  the  contact  of  two  such  races  should 
result  only  in  an  antagonism  which  manifested  itself,  on 
occasions,  in  murders,  in  riots  and  in  relentless  warfare ! 
But  all  this  was  to  the  Saxon  a  tonic,  stimulating  his  intel- 
lectual, moral  and  physical  development,  making  him  the 
bolder,  the  more  watchful,  the  more  self-reliant.  He  was  a 
minority  of  the  people  of  Ireland,  but  it  was  a  militant  and 
dominant  minority.  So  little  brought  in  contact  with  the 
English  government  was  he,  that  he  was  fast  becoming  repub- 
lican in  his  political  ideals.  Kings  and  governors  were  kings 
and  governors  to  him  only  so  long  as  they  obeyed  the  laws 
and  were  faithful  to  the  rights  of  the  people.  Otherwise  he 
cared  nothing  for  them.  His  liberty  consisted  in  laws  made 
by  the  consent  of  the  people,  and  the  due  execution  of  those 
laws.  He  was  free  not  from  the  law  but  by  the  law.  So 
these  English  and  Scotch  Protestants  in  Ireland,  these  Sax- 
ons in  Celt -land,  were,  in  their  dealings  wdth  the  Irish  uncon- 
sciously fitting  themselves  for  their  greater  work  in  America. 
It  was,  so  to  say,  a  forty  years  sojourn  in  the  walderness  in 
preparation  for  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  they  entered  that 
land  strong;  in  the  holv  confidence  that,  ''the  Lord,  He  it  is 
that  doth  go  before  thee ;  He  will  be  with  thee ;  He  will  not 
fail  thee,  neither  forsake  thee  ;  fear  not,  neither  be  dismayed." 

Of  this  sturdy  and  virile  race  w^as  James  Graham,  who  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  years,  in  1733,  migrated  from  County 
Down,  Ireland,  to  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania.  He  was 
twice  married,  his  second  wife  being  the  widow  Mary  Bar- 
ber, and  died  in  1763.  By  the  last  marriage  there  were  five 
children.  In  1768  Mrs.  Graham,  wdth  her  children,  coming 
by  sea  to  Charleston,  S.  C,  thence  across  country,  located  in 
Mecklenburg  County,  N".  C.     In  1771  she  purchased  a  tract 


lit  must  be  remembered  that  the  Irish  of  the  17th  century  had  only  reached  a  stage  of 
racial  development,  through  which  their  Saxon  foes  had  passed  200  years  before.  So  this 
parallel  has  to  do  only  with  such  developments,  and  not  at  all  with  racial  capabilities. 


10  NoETH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

of  land  containing  two  hundred  acres  within  three  miles  of 
the  then  little  harnlet  of  Charlotte.  Most  of  these  Scotch- 
Irish,  and  there  were  many  of  them,  migrated  from  Penn- 
sylvania south  in  search  of  fertile  lands  in  a  milder  climate. 
It  is  probable  that  this  was  Mrs.  Graham's  motive,  induced 
thereto  also  by  the  fact  that  many  of  her  neighbors  and 
friends  had  preceded  her.  She  must  have  been  a  woman  of 
remarkable  courage  and  strength  of  character  to  undertake 
this  long,  tedious  and  dangerous  journey  with  six  young 
children,  the  youngest  scarcely  more  than  four  years  of  age. 
!No  doubt  she  selected  the  actual  location  with  a  view  to  the 
religious  and  educational  privileges  convenient  to  it.  John 
Frohock,  Abraham  Alexander  and  Thomas  Polk  had  already 
laid  off  the  town  of  Charlotte  into  360  half-acre  lots,  and  on 
some  of  these  good,  habitable  houses  had  been  erected.  Eighty 
lots  had  been  sold  and  must  be  built  upon  within  three  years, 
under  pain  of  forfeiture.^  So  with  the  court-house,  prison  and 
stocks  there,  with  tradesmen  and  artisans  plying  their  trades, 
and  lawyers  locating  to  practice  their  profession,  Charlotte  at 
the  time  of  its  incorporation,  ]!!^ovember,  1768,  must  have 
been  attracting  some  attention  as  a  place  with  a  future. 
Many  of  the  settlements  about  the  county,  too,  were  fertile, 
fruitful,  well  tended  farms.  The  rule,  however,  was  here,  as 
it  was  in  all  these  Scotch-Irish  communities,  the  man  to  the 
plow,  the  woman  to  the  distaff  and  the  child  to  the  school, 
Mrs.  Graham,  though  of  limited  means,  after  giving  her  chil- 
dren such  instruction  as  she  was  capable  of  doing,  sent  most 
of  them  to  the  best  school  in  this  section.  Queen's  Museum, 
afterwards  Liberty  Hall.  She  instilled  into  all  of  them  a 
love  for  learning  and  a  desire  to  acquire  knowledge.  Her 
sons  were  among  the  most  prominent  men  of  their  time,  and 
probably  came  into  public  notice  at  an  earlier  age  than  any 
other  youths  of  the  county.  Her  daughters  were  the  heads  of 
families  whose  descendants  are  known  for  their  virtue  and 
intelligence,  and  have  ever  been  prominent  in  the  communi- 


•  State  Records  of  North  Carolina,  XXIII,  772-3. 


William  A.  Graham.  11 

ties  in  which  they  lived  on  account  of  their  worth  and  public 
spirit.  She  was,  herself  a  faithful  Presbyterian,  member  of 
Sugar  Creek  church,  and  her  children  were  noted  not  only 
for  their  intelligence  and  activity  in  worldly  matters,  but 
were  also  earnest  supporters  of  morality  and  religion.^ 

Her  third  son,  Joseph  Graham,  was  born  in  Chester 
County,  Pennsylvania,  October  13th,  1759.  He  assisted  in 
cultivating  his  mother's  farm  and  attended  school  in  Char- 
lotte. He  was  distinguished  among  his  fellow-students  for 
talents,  industry  and  manly  bearing.  The  mere  schooling, 
though,  was  not  the  most  valuable  training  that  he  had  at  that 
period.  In  the  political  ferment  of  the  time,  1768-1776,  the 
minds  of  men  were  expanding.  At  every  church  gathering,  at 
every  county  court,  they  discussed  the  power  of  parliament, 
the  rights  of  the  colonies,  and  how  best  to  preserve  those 
rights.  These  discussions  were  going  on  throughout  all  the 
colonies,  making  every  intelligent  man  a  politician,  and  caus- 
ing the  patriots  in  the  face  of  threatened  danger  to  draw 
closer  together  in  sympathy,  thus  paving  the  way  for  future 
organization.  Patrick  Henry,  in  Virginia,  was  but  giving 
eloquent  utterance  to  the  aspirations  and  hopes  and  ambitions 
of  the  people,  unexpressed,  or  inadequately  expressed,  by 
themselves.  He  was,  in  other  words,  but  the  mouthpiece  of, 
and  interpreter  for,  the  people.  The  intelligent  boy  or 
youth,  standing  about  in  these  crowds  listening  to  these  dis- 
cussions among  his  elders,  was  having  his  own  ideas  enlarged, 
his  patriotism  aroused  and  his  mind  trained  for  his  future 
work.  Joseph  Graham  was  interested  in  all  these  discus- 
sions and  attended  many  of  these  public  meetings.  He,  as 
a  boy  in  the  16th  year  of  his  age,  was  present  at  the  adoption 
of  the  Mecklenburg  Resolves  of  May,  1775.  Pifty-five  years 
later  he  gives  an  account  of  this  meeting  and  testifies  that  it 
was  held  on  May  20th.  At  this  distance  of  time,  without 
any  contemporary  record  to  verify  his  memory,  there  are 
errors  in  his  statement  which  subsequently-discovered  records 

1  Graham  :  Revolutionary  Papers  of  General  Joseph  Graham,  16. 


12  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

show.  In  several  instances,  he  mistakes  the  time  of  events 
that  he  undertakes  to  narrate,  but  he  and  others  have  so  com- 
pletely identified  May  20th  as  the  date  upon  which  some 
resolutions  were  adopted,  that,  in  the  absence  of  better  evi- 
dence we  may  assume  that  a  meeting  was  held  on  that  day, 
in  order  to  take  some  action  upon  the  news  of  the  Battle  of 
Lexington,  which,  we  know,  arrived  that  week,  the  20th  occur- 
ring on  Saturday.  And  it  makes  no  difference  whether  they 
met  on  Friday  the  19th  and  continued  the  meeting  over  until 
2  a.  m.  of  the  20th,  or  met  on  Saturday  morning  the  20th, 
so  far  as  the  essential  fact  is  concerned,  that  a  meeting  was 
held  at  that  time  and  that  certain  resolutions  were  adopted. 
Confining  the  issue  to  this  essential  fact,  I  have  seen  nothing 
that  contradicts  the  testimony  of  the  many  eye-witnesses  on 
that  point.  We  can  imagine  the  excitement  and  anger 
among  these  descendants  of  the  bold  defenders  of  London- 
derry and  Enniskillen  at  the  news  of  Lexington,  how  they 
would  hold  a  public  meeting  as  soon  as  the  crowd  could 
gather,  how  in  the  anger  and  excitement  of  the  moment  they 
should  adopt  resolutions,  which  on  calm  second  thought  they 
would  realize  were  premature  and  unwise.  That  there  were 
two  meetings,  at  least,  is  perfectly  apparent  from  the  fact 
that  the  papers  of  which  J.  McKnitt  x\.lexander  had  the  cus- 
tody were  resolutions  adopted  at  a  public  meeting  of  which 
he  was  secretary,  whereas  those  of  the  31st  were  adopted  at 
a  committee  meeting,  Ephraim  Brevard  being  the  secretary 
of  that  committee.  The  resolutions  of  the  31st,  too,  neces- 
sarily presupposes  a  previous  meeting,  or  meetings.  They 
are  not  the  product  of  a  day  or  of  a  week.  They  were  not 
devised  by  one  mind  or  written  by  one  hand.  They  show 
calm  deliberation,  and  not  emotional  excitement  or  sudden 
anger,  such  as  that  provoked  by  news  of  the  Battle  of  Lexing- 
ton. It  seems  to  me,  with  deference,  that  the  modern  his- 
torians have  taken  issue  on  immaterial  facts  and  have 
obtained  a  verdict  on  those  issues  alone.  Captain  Jack  did 
not  take  the  resolutions  of  the  20th  to  Philadelphia ;  he  did 


William  A.  Gkaham.  1& 

take  those  of  the  31st.  Admitted,  because  proven.  Gover- 
nor Martin  sent  those  of  the  31st,  and  not  those  of  the  20th, 
to  London.  Admitted,  because  proven.  There  was  no  con- 
temporary record,  or  allusion  to  those  of  the  20th ;  there  were 
both  to  those  of  the  31st.  True,  also,  so  far  as  discovered. 
The  resolutions  written  down  from  memory  by  J.  McKnitt 
Alexander  in  1800,  show  in  their  verbiage  the  influence  of 
the  Declaration  of  July  4th,  1776.  This,  too,  is  probably 
true.  We  have  been  mistaken  heretofore  in  regard  to  these 
matters,  it  is  true,  yet  after  all,  none  of  them  is  essential  to 
the  determination  of  the  true  issue — was  there  a  meeting  held 
on  the  20th  with  resolutions  which  amounted  to  a  Declaration 
of  Independence  adopted  ?  And  to  this  there  are  a  cloud  of 
witnesses.  The  writer,  when  not  more  than  half  as  old  as 
was  General  Graham  at  this  time,  was  told  of  General  Lee's 
surrender  by  a  lady,  while  we  were  near  an  osage  orange 
hedge,  and  while  she  was  talking  a  raccoon  came  from  under 
the  hedge.  If  he  should  live  a  thousand  years  he  will  never 
forget  the  fact  of  the  coon,  the  expression  of  his  countenance, 
and  his  connection  with  General  Lee's  surrender,  i^ow,  the 
news  of  the  Battle  of  Lexington  was  to  Joseph  Graham  what 
this  coon  was  to  myself — a  fact  indelibly  engraved  upon  his 
memory.  It  seems,  therefore,  reasonably  certain,  though 
there  are  many  conflicts  in  the  testimony  of  the  various  wit- 
nesses, that  the  resolutions  of  the  20th  were  real,  but  having 
been  adopted  in  a  moment  of  anger  and  excitement,  the  sober 
sense  of  the  people  prevailed  in  those  of  the  31st,  and  the 
latter  were  published,  while  the  former  were  permitted  to 
slumber  undisturbed,  in  the  possession  of  Alexander,  as  a 
folly  to  be  regretted  rather  than  a  matter  of  supreme 
importance. 

It  was  amid  scenes  such  as  these,  among  men  such  as  these, 
that  young  Graham  worked  and  studied  and  thought,  his 
character  under  the  control  and  guidance  of  a  wise  mother, 
developing  into  an  almost  perfect  type  of  the  noble  race  to 
which  he  belonged — bold,  self-reliant,  earnest.  God-fearing. 


14  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

He  was  eighteen  years  of  age  when  he  took  up  arms  for  his 
country  and  fought  valiantly,  successfully  and  faithfully, 
until  his  services  were  no  longer  needed.  He  was  just  twenty- 
two  years  of  age  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  "He 
entered  the  army  as  a  private,  passed  through  the  grades  of 
orderly  sergeant,  quartermaster  sergeant,  quartermaster, 
adjutant,  captain,  and  major.  *  *  *  He  commanded  in  fif- 
teen engagements  with  wisdom,  calmness,  courage  and  success 
to  a  degree  perhaps  surpassed  by  no  other  officer  of  the  same 
rank.  Hundreds  who  served  under  his  command  have  tes- 
tified to  the  upright,  faithful,  prudent  and  undaunted  man- 
ner in  which  he  discharged  the  duties  of  his  responsible  sta- 
tions. Never  was  he  known  to  shrink  from  any  toil,  however 
painful,  or  quail  before  any  dangers,  however  threatening,  or 
avoid  any  privation  or  sacrifice  which  might  promote  his 
country's  cause."^ 

The  very  qualities  that  made  him  successful  as  a  soldier — 
courage,  alertness,  intelligence — made  him  successful  in  civil 
life,  as  legislator,  as  member  of  two  Constitutional  Conven- 
tions, as  iron  miner  and  founder.  I  may  not  pause  over  the 
stirring  incidents  of  the  military  service  of  this  excellent  man 
and  soldier,  nor  can  I  tell  more  fully  of  his  great  usefulness 
to  church  and  state  in  the  quieter  w^alks  of  his  civil  career. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  he  loved  and  served  his  state  and  church 
faithfully  and  well,  that  in  all  that  concerned  their  welfare,  he 
was  not  only  interested,  but  active,  not  only  intelligent  but 
wise.  "His  life  was  a  bright  and  illustrious  pattern  of  domes- 
tic, social  and  public  virtues.  Modest,  amiable,  upright  and 
pious,  he  lived  a  noble  ornament  to  his  country,  a  faithful 
friend  to  the  church  and  a  rich  blessing  to  his  family."  In 
1787  he  married  Miss  Isabella  Davidson,  a  daughter  of  Maj. 
John  Davidson,  and  of  a  family  distinguished  alike  for  intelli- 
gence and  patriotism.  It  was  in  consequence  of  this  marriage, 
that,  forming  a  business  connection  with  his  father-in-law,  he 
moved  to  Lincoln  County  in  1792,  and  became  an  iron  founder 


I  Revolutionary  papers  of  General  Joseph  Graham. 


William  A.  Gkaiiam.  15 

and  monger.  Mrs.  Graham  is  said  to  have  been  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  Major  Davidson's  handsome  daughters,  and  her  char- 
acter corresponded  in  loveliness  and  goodness  to  her  personal 
appearance.  It  was  from  her  that  the  subject  of  this  sketch 
derived  so  much  of  the  manly  beauty  that  was  one  of  his 
distinguishing  characteristics  during  his  long  life.  At  the 
residence  of  his  father  near  Vesuvius  Furnace  in  Lincoln 
County,  he  was  born,  September  5th,  1804. 

CHILDHOOD,  YOUTH  AND  YOUNG  MANHOOD 
William  Alexander  Graham  was  the  eleventh  child  and 
youngest  son  of  General  Joseph  Graham  and  Isabella  David- 
son Graham,  his  wife.  Mrs.  Graham  died  January  15th, 
1808.  The  eldest  sister,  Sophia,  who  afterwards  married 
Dr.  John  Witherspoon,  of  South  Carolina,  but  was  then  only 
seventeen  years  of  age,  assumed  the  care  of  the  younger  chil- 
dren of  the  family.  She  performed  the  duties  with  faithful- 
ness, consideration  and  affection.  She  was  regarded  as  a  typi- 
cal older  sister  and  daughter  and  was  remembered  with  great 
love  and  pleasure  by  those  to  whom  she  had  given  her  atten- 
tion and  love.  Young  William  was,  too,  an  object  of  especial 
solicitude  and  care  to  his  father.  He  made  him  his  com- 
panion by  day  and  by  night,  and  instilled  into  him  lessons 
of  virtue,  piety  and  patriotism.  This  constant  association 
with  so  excellent  a  man  and  so  good  a  Christian  as  General 
Graham  was  one  of  the  strongest  influences  in  shaping  the 
boy's  life.  For  years  he  lived  the  happy,  free  life  of  the 
country  boy  in  a  household  where  there  was  competence  if 
not  wealth.  When  he  was  older  he  was  sent  to  a  neighbor- 
hood school,  very  much  against  his  will,  for  he  hid  under 
a  bed  and  had  to  be  dragged  out  by  the  heels.  There  he  ac- 
quired the  rudiments  of  learning.  His  first  school  away 
from  home  was  in  Mecklenburg  County,  where  he  lived  with 
his  mother's  brother,  Mr.  Robin  Davidson.  The  school- 
house  being  three  miles  distant,  he  rode  to  it  on  horseback, 
generally  accompanied  by  James  W.  Osborne,  of  Charlotte, 
who,  being  the  younger,   rode  behind.     His   uncle  became 


16  North  Carolina  Historical  Commissions^ 

very  fond  of  the  motherless  lad,  and  the  boy  reciprocated  so 
heartily,  that  he  later  named  one  of  his  sons  for  this  uncle. 
From  this  country  school  he  was  sent  to  the  Pleasant  Re- 
treat Academy  at  Lincolnton,  of  which  his  father  was  one  of 
the  trustees.  His  room-mate  was  his  cousin,  Theodore  W. 
Brevard,  who  afterwards  became  disting:uished  in  the  State 
of  Florida,  where  he  held  several  important  offices.  Next  he 
was  sent  to  the  classical  school  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Muchat  at 
Statesville.  He  was  noted  for  his  industry,  his  thirst  for 
knowledge  and  his  aptitude  to  learn.  One  who  knew  him 
well,  (Rev.  Dr.  R.  H.  Morrison),  testified  that  from  his 
childhood  he  Avas  no  less  remarkable  for  his  high  sense  of 
honor  and  truth,  than  for  his  exemption  from  the  levities 
and  vices  common  to  youth.  At  this  academy  he  applied 
himself  to  his  studies  with  the  most  exemplary  diligence. 
Judge  Brevard,  a  classmate,  said  of  him :  "He  was  the  only 
boy  I  ever  knew,  who  would  spend  his  Saturdays  in  reviewing 
the  studies  of  the  week."^  This  habit  he  kept  up,  too,  during 
his  subsequent  school  and  college  course.  When  he  was  four- 
teen or  fifteen  years  of  age,  he,  for  a  time,  probably  during 
a  vacation,  superintended,  on  the  advice  of  his  brother  John, 
Spring  Hill  forge.  General  Graham  was  much  pleased  with 
his  work  in  this  capacity,  saying  that  it  was  one  of  the  most 
successful  seasons  in  the  history  of  the  works.  His  final  prep- 
aration for  college  was  obtained  at  the  Hillsboro  Academy, 
an  uncommonly  good  classical  school.  The  Rev.  John  With- 
erspoon  had  the  general  supervision  of  this  school,  but  the 
active  teacher  was  Mr.  John  Rogers,  who  had  distinguished 
himself  in  his  profession  at  Wilmington.  President  Cald- 
well induced  them  to  agi-ee  that  their  institution  should  be 
preparatory  to  the  University.  Members  of  the  faculty  could 
participate  in  the  periodical  examinations  of  the  pupils, 
and  those  passing  the  examinations  of  the  highest  classes 
had  a  right  to  enter  the  University  on  certificate  of  the  faet.^ 


•McGehee:  Memorial  Oration  on  Life  and  Services  of  William  A.  Graham. 
2  Battle:  History  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  283. 


William  A,  Geaham.  17 

Mr.  Rogers  had  been  educated  for  the  Catholic  priesthood, 
and  for  accurate  scholarship  and  capacity  as  a  teacher,  had 
few  superiors.^ 

Young  Graham  matriculated  at  the  University  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1820.  Says  Mr.  McGehee  in  his  very  admirable 
memorial  oration:"  "His  course  throughout  his  college  life 
was  admirable  in  every  way.  He  appreciated  the  scheme  of 
study  there  established,  not  only  as  the  best  discipline  of  the 
intellect,  but  as  the  best  foundation  for  knowledge  in  its 
widest  sense.  He  mastered  his  lessons  so  perfectly,  that  each 
lesson  became  a  permanent  addition  to  his  stock  of  knowledge. 
The  professors  rarely  failed  to  testify  by  a  smile,  or  some 
other  token,  their  approval  of  his  efficiency.  On  one  occasion 
a  professor  (Olmstead),  who  has  attained  a  world-wide  rep- 
utation in  the  field  of  science,  remarked  to  one  of  young 
Graham's  classmates  (John  W.  Norwood)  that  his  lecture 
on  chemistry  came  back  as  perfectly  from  Mr.  Graham  as  he 
had  uttered  it  on  the  previous  day.  Some  thirty  years  after, 
the  same  professor  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Graham,  (then  Secre- 
tary of  the  3Sravy)  says  :  "It  has  often  been  a  source  of  pleas- 
ing reflection  to  me,  that  I  have  been  permitted  to  bear  some 
part  in  fitting  you,  in  early  life,  for  that  elevated  post  of 
honor  and  usefulness  to  which  Providence  has  conducted 
you." 

His  high  sense  of  duty  was  manifested  in  his  conscien- 
tious deportment  under  the  peculiar  form  of  government 
to  which  he  was  then  subject.  His  observance  of  every  law 
and  usage  of  the  college  was  punctilious,  while  to  the  fac- 
ulty he  was  ever  scrupulously  and  conspicuously  respectful. 

His  extraordinary  proficiency  was  purchased  by  no  labori- 
ous drudgery.  The  secret  of  it  was  to  be  found  in  the  precept 
which  he  acted  upon  through  life — "whatsoever  thy  hand 
findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might."  His  powers  of  concen- 
tration were  great,  his  perceptions  quick,  his  memory  pow- 

' McGehee:  Memorial  Oration.     2pages8-9. 

2 


18  i^ORTH    CAKOLIiN^A    HISTORICAL    COMMISSION. 

erf  111,  prompt  and  assiduously  improved.  By  the  joint  force 
of  such  faculties,  he  could  accomplish  much  in  little  time. 
Hence,  notwithstanding  his  exemplary  attention  to  his  college 
duties,  he  devoted  much  time  to  general  reading.  He  partic- 
ipated regularly  in  the  debates  and  other  exercises  of  the 
Literary  Society.  For  all  such  he  prepared  himself  with 
care;  and  it  is  asserted  upon  the  authority  of  Mr.  John  \V. 
Norwood — a  most  competent  judge — that  his  compositions 
were  of  such  excellence  that,  in  a  literary  point  of  view,  they 
would  have  challenged  comparison  with  anything  done  by 
him  in  after  life. 

His  engaging  manners  brought  him  into  pleasant  relations 
with  all  his  fellow  students.  He  lived  with  them  upon  tenns 
of  the  frankest  and  most  familiar  intercourse.  In  their  most 
athletic  sports  he  never  participated,  but  he  was  a  pleased 
spectator,  and  evinced  by  his  manner  a  hearty  sympathy 
with  their  enjoyments.  His  favorite  exercise  was  walking, 
and  those  who  knew  him  well  will  recollect  that  this  con- 
tinued to  be  his  favorite  recreation  while  health  was  spared 
him.  With  friends  and  chosen  companions  he  was  cordial 
and  easy,  and  always  the  life  of  the  circle  when  met  to- 
gether. 

He  graduated  in  the  class  of  1824,  he  being  one  of  the 
four  first  honor  men,  the  others  being  Thomas  Dews,  after- 
wards a  very  able  lawyer,  but  dying  early,  Matthias  Evans 
Manly,  afterwards  state  senator,  judge  of  the  Superior  and 
Supreme  Courts,  elected  United  States  Senator  in  1866,  but 
not  allowed  to  take  his  seat,  and  Edwin  D.  Sims  of  Virginia, 
afterwards  tutor  in  the  University,  and  professor  in  Ran- 
dolph-Macon College  and  in  the  University  of  Alabama.  To 
young  Graham  was  assigned  the  classical  oration.  It  has  been 
the  privilege  of  the  writer  to  see  this.  It  is  a  pleasant  and 
orderly  resume  of  the  history  of  the  preservation  of  the  clas- 
sics, and  an  argument  for  their  continued  usefulness  in  the 
training  of  the  mind  and  their  giving  breadth  to  one's  cul- 
ture.    His  style  at  that  early  period  had  not  become  Individ- 


William  A.  Graham.  19 

iialistic,  but  was  rather  a  reflection  of  his  own  training  at  the 
University,  so  was  a  little  stiff  and  formal.  Other  noted 
graduates  of  1824  were  Daniel  B.  Baker,  judge  of  the  Supe- 
rior Court  of  Florida ;  John  Bragg,  member  of  Congress  and 
judge  of  the  Superior  Court  of  Alabama ;  James  W.  Bryan, 
strong  lawyer,  trustee  of  the  University  and  state  senator 
from  Craven ;  A.  J.  DeRosset,  physician  and  merchant  of 
Wilmington,  treasurer  of  the  Dioceses  of  North  and  East 
Carolina  and  often  deputy  to  the  general  conventions  of  the 
Episcopal  Church;  Augustus  Moore,  judge  of  the  Superior 
Court ;  John  W.  ISTorwood,  able  lawyer,  member  of  the  legis- 
lature and  senator  from  Orange;  David  Outlaw,  member  of 
Congress,  state  solicitor,  state  senator  and  delegate  to  the 
convention  of  1836,  and  Bromfield  L.  Ridley,  chancellor  of 
Tennesee.^ 

After  his  graduation  he  visited  his  sister,  Mrs.  Wither- 
spoon,  at  Lexington,  Ky.,  and  while  there  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  John  J.  Crittenden,  and  had  an  opportunity 
to  hear  him  in  a  great  slander  case. 

On  his  return  from  this  tour  he  began  the  study  of  law  in 
the  office  of  Judge  Ruffin  at  Hillsboro.  The  opinion  of  Judge 
Ruffin  as  to  the  proper  course  to  be  pursued  with  a  student 
of  law  was  somewhat  peculiar.  He  held  that  he  should  have 
little  assistance  beyond  that  of  having  his  course  of  studies 
prescribed.  He  must,  as  it  were,  scale  the  height  alone,  by  his 
own  strength  and  courage ;  availing  himself  of  a  guide  only 
at  points  otherwise  inaccessible.  Young  Graham's  brother, 
James  Graham,  in  a  letter  written  at  this  period,  made  men- 
tion of  this  opinion,  and  urged  him  to  adopt  the  expedient 
resorted  to  by  himself:  "When  he  would  not  examine  me  I 
took  the  liberty  of  questioning  him  very  frequently,  and 
by  drawing  him  into  conversation  on  legal  subjects,  my  own 
ideas  were  rendered  more  clear,  correct  and  lasting."' 

We  may  be  sure  that  the  contact  of  two  such  minds — the 


1  Battle:  History  of  University,  296.    ^McGehee,  10  and  12. 


20  ]^ORTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

one  young,  ardent  and  acquisitive — the  other  mature  and  vig- 
orous, the  mind  of  a  master  in  his  particular  calling,  could 
result  only  in  good  to  the  younger,  whatever  the  method  of 
instruction  might  be.  As  a  matter  of  fact  young  Graham 
came  to  the  bar  remarkably  well  prepared.  The  points  he 
made  were  substantial  and  well  sustained,  and  six  years 
afterwards  he  was  in  the  full  tide  of  a  successful  practice. 
He  obtained  his  county  court  license  at  the  December  term, 
1826,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  was  sworn  in  before  the 
county  court  at  Hillsboro  in  February,  1827.  His  first 
litigated  case  in  that  court  was  at  the  August  term,  1827, 
Charles  Allison  v,  Samuel  Madden,  Judge  ^ash,  who  had 
recently  resigned  from  the  Superior  Court  bench,  appearing 
with  him  for  the  plaintiff.^  At  the  ensuing  j^ovember  term 
he  had  two  other  cases  on  the  trial  docket,  and  three  on  the 
appearance.  He  obtained  his  Superior  Court  license  at  the 
December  term,  1827,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  took  the 
oaths  at  the  March  term,  1828,  of  the  Superior  Court  of 
Orange  County.  His  first  litigated  case  was  at  the  same 
term  of  that  court — Doe  and  John  Dunn,  executor  of  William 
Keeling,  v.  James  Keeling;  A.  D.  Murphey  and  Wiley  P. 
Mangum  for  plaintiff,  and  Frederick  ]^ash  and  W.  A.  Gra- 
ham for  the  defendant."  His  first  case  of  importance  in 
the  Superior  Court,"  says  Mr.  McGehee,  'Svas  one  which 
from  peculiar  causes,  excited  great  local  iziterest.  It  involved 
an  intricate  question  of  title  to  land.  On  the  day  of  trial, 
the  court-room  was  crowded  and  the  bar  fully  occupied  by 
lawyers — many  of  them  men  of  the  highest  professional 
eminence.  When  he  came  to  address  the  jury,  he  spoke  with 
modesty,  but  with  ease  and  self-possession.  His  preparation 
of  the  case  had  been  thorough,  and  the  argument  which  he 
delivered  is  described  as  admirable,  both  as  to  matter  and 
manner.  When  he  closed,  the  Hon.  William  H.  Haywood, 
who  had  then  risen  to  a  high  position  at  the  bar,  turned  to 


•  County  Court  Records.     '  Superior  Court  Records. 


William  A.  Graham.  21 

a  distinguished  gentleman,  still  living,  of  the  same  profes- 
sion, and  inquired  who  had  prepared  the  argument  which 
Mr.  Graham  had  delivered  so  handsomely.  The  answer  was, 
'It  is  all  his  own,'  to  which  Mr.  Haywood  replied,  'William 
Gaston  could  have  done  it  no  better.'  " 

At  the  time  he  determined  to  locate  at  Hillsboro,  young 
Graham  had  already  spent  several  years  there ;  first,  as  a  stu- 
dent at  the  Hillsboro  Academy ;  second,  as  a  student  of  law 
under  Judge  Ruffin,  and  third,  as  practitioner  in  the  county 
court.  It  was  centrally  located,  convenient  to  the  State  capi- 
tal. It  was  the  county  seat  of  a  large  county,  with  a  popula- 
tion of  about  25,000,  and  there  was  much  litigation.  It  was 
then,  as  it  had  always  been,  the  foster  mother  of  great  men. 
There  was  no  town  in  the  State  that  contained  so  much  that 
was  best  of  the  public  life  of  the  State,  though  it  had  then  only 
about  four  hundred  white  inhabitants.  There  was  Murphey, 
perhaps  the  greatest  genius  in  its  history ;  Ruffin,  the  greatest 
lawyer  and  judge ;  Mangum,  one  of  its  greatest  popular  ora- 
tors and  statesmen  ;  Norwood,  the  elder,  able  lawyer,  and  up- 
right judge ;"  ISTash,  whose  excellencies  as  an  advocate,  said 
Mr.  Abraham  W.  Venable,  were  equaled  by  few  and  surpassed 
by  none,  attaining  later  the  highest  honors  of  his  profession; 
Dr.  James  Webb,  distinguished  physician  and  business  man, 
and  others  too  numerous  to  mention,  while  Duncan  Cameron, 
George  E.  Badger,  William  H.  Haywood  and  Bartlett 
Yancey,  were  intimately  associated  with  the  place.  Among 
men  of  his  own  age,  were  Richard  S.  Clinton,  Dr.  Edmund 
Strudwick  and  John  W.  Norwood,  his  college-  and  class- 
mate. The  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  that  time 
was  the  Rev.  John  Witherspoon,  grandson  of  the  signer,  an 
able  man,  and,  though  unequal,  on  occasion  eloquent.  He 
was  afterwards  moderator  of  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly.  The  rector  of  the  Episcopal  Church  was  the 
Rev.  William  M.  Green,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Mississippi 
and  chancellor  of  the  University  of  the  South.  Mr.  Dennis 
Heartt  was  successfully  editing  and  publishing  the  Hillsbora 


22  NoKTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

Recorder.  The  social  advantages  of  the  place,  too,  were  very 
great.  It  was  full  of  cultivated  men  and  women,  none  very 
wealthy,  but  all  having  an  abundance  of  the  comforts  of 
life  and  many  of  its  luxuries,  and  they  were  hospitable  with- 
out stint.  This  society,  though  somewhat  formal,  was  wholly 
delightful.  !Nor  was  the  competition  at  the  bar  so  stringent 
as  appears  on  the  surface.  Judge  Norwood  was  at  that 
time  on  the  Superior  Court  bench,  and  so  continued  until 
1836.  Judge  Ruffin  was  on  the  Superior  Court  bench,  re- 
signed that  year,  1828,  to  accept  the  presidency  of  the  State 
Bank,  and  the  following  year  was  elevated  to  the  Supreme 
Court.  Judge  Mangum  was  elected  to  the  Superior  Court 
in  1828,  and  to  the  United  State  Senate  in  1830.  Judge 
Cameron  lived  out  in  the  country,  and  presided  occasionally 
^over  the  county  court.  Judge  Murphey's  health  was  failing, 
and  he  died  in  February,  1832.  Of  the  visiting  lawyers, 
Bartlett  Yancey,  who  did  a  large  business  in  Orange,  died 
in  1828,  and  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1830.  Judge 
was  left,  and  he  returned  to  the  bench  in  1836.  There 
is  no  wonder  then  that  so  able  a  young  lawyer  as  Mr.  Gra- 
ham should  locate  under  these  favorable  conditions  at  Hills- 
boro.  N^or  is  it  any  wonder  that  he  should  be  cordially  re- 
ceived there,  and  in  a  few  years  should  be  at  the  head  of  its 
bar,  a  preeminence  which  he  maintained  for  forty  years. 
Few  young  men  have  commenced  the  practice  of  the  law 
with  greater  natural  and  acquired  qualifications  than  had  he„ 
In  him  a  remarkably  handsome  and  dignified  presence  was 
united  to  the  highest  character,  excellent  mental  endowments, 
untiring  industry,  kind,  courteous  and  elegant,  rather  genial 
manners  and  thorough  conscientiousness.  He  was  fully  six 
feet  tall,  very  erect,  and  had  hazel  eyes,  dark  hair  and  clear- 
cut  features.  His  action  in  speaking  was  easy  and  graceful, 
sometimes  warming  into  energy  and  force  when  the  subject 
demanded  it,  and  the  tones  of  his  voice  were  mellow,  har- 
monious and  well  modulated.  He  was  ambitious  and  self- 
reliant,  so  all  that  was  best  in  him  came  at  his  demand. 


William  A.  Graham.  23 

Success  and  complete  success  to  such  a  character  was  only 
a  matter  of  time,  and  one  could  predict  it  for  him  with 
absolute  confidence  at  the  outset  of  his  career. 

LEGISLATOR,   1833  TO  1841 

Hillsboro,  enfranchised  by  Governor  Tryon  in  17Y0,  con- 
tinued to  be  one  of  the  borough  towns  of  the  State  under 
the  Constitution  of  1776,  and  until  borough  representation 
v/as  abolished  by  the  Convention  of  1835.  The  qualifications 
for  voters  in  these  towns  w^ere:  First,  possession  of  a  free- 
hold in  the  town,  whether  the  proposed  voter  v/as  a  resident 
or  not;  second,  freedom,  coupled  with  residence  in  the  town 
for  twelve  months,  next  before  and  at  the  day  of  election, 
and  payment  of  public  taxes.  The  elections  for  borough 
members  were  annual.  Mr.  Graham  represented  Hillsboro 
the  last  three  years  of  its  existence.  At  that  time  there  were 
about  85  qualified  voters  in  the  town,  and  the  elections  were 
generally  close,  and  conducted  amid  great  excitement  with 
the  "free  use  of  intoxicants.  Though  William  Norwood, 
Thomas  Ruffin,  John  Scott  and  Frederick  ISTash  had  at  inter- 
vals of  time  represented  it,  its  member  was  often  some  tavern- 
keeper,  or  one  of  the  lesser  lights  of  its  citizens.  At  Mr. 
Graham's  first  election  he  was  vigorously  opposed.  He  was 
thereafter,  however,  elected  with  little  opposition. 

At  the  time  he  entered  public  life,  i^Torth  Carolina  was 
on  the  whole  retrogi-ading.  Its  soil,  moderately  fertile, 
yielded  remunerative  returns  only  to  intelligent  and  per- 
sistent labor.  It  contained  a  great  variety  of  minerals ;  gen- 
erally enough  in  a  single  locality  to  attract  the  adventurous 
prospector,  not  enough  to  prevent  disappointment  to  his 
hopes.  There  was  vast  wealth  in  its  forests,  but  there  was 
little  capital  to  exploit  it,  and  no  accessible  market  for  it. 
Away  from  the  cotton  section,  in  its  midland  and  west,  it 
was  a  country  of  small  farmers,  a  majority  of  whom  had 
their  material  wants  well  supplied  from  the  products  of 
their  farms,   but   again   there  was  no   adequate  market   for 


24  JSToRTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

any  excess.  Without  this  market,  there  was  no  hope  that 
they  could  improve  their  condition,  and  without  this  hope, 
they  toiled  on,  generation  after  generation,  quite  often  the 
laborious  father  being  followed  by  the  shiftless  son.  In 
consequence  of  this  occasional  retrogression  in  families, 
there  were  whole  communities,  not  numerous,  or  large  in 
themselves,  scattered  here  and  there  throughout  this  section, 
plague  spots  upon  the  body  politic,  in  which  the  men  were 
without  God  and  without  hope  in  the  world,  and  the  women 
were  without  decency  and  quite  frequently  without  virtue — 
communities,  whose  fragmentary  remains  are  with  us  to 
this  day,  fast  disappearing,  thank  God,  under  more  hopeful 
conditions.  The  opening  of  the  West,  too,  with  its  inviting 
opportunities  for  the  adventurous  and  bold,  was  carrying 
away  more  and  more  the  brawn  and  sinew  of  the  State. 
Those  who  owned  slaves  might,  year  by  year  and  generation 
after  generation,  tend  their  ancestral  acres  on  or  within  reach 
of  the  navigable  streams  of  the  East,  and  live  in  ease  and 
comfort  while  they  educated  their  children,  but  to  the  small 
farmer  of  the  West  was  lacking  that  contact  with  the  world 
which  brings  enlightenment  and  hope,  and  stimulates  am- 
bition and  effort.  What  wonder  then  that  N^orth  Carolina 
was  retrograding  and  that  the  pall  of  ignorance,  instead  of 
receding,  was  extending  wider  and  wider  over  its  people ! 
It  is  natural  that  under  such  narrow  conditions  the  people 
themselves  should  become  narrow,  and  should  think  that 
the  whole  science  of  government  must  expend  itself  on  a 
pennywise  pound  foolish  economy,  and  that  the  two  great 
evils  in  the  world  were  death  and  taxation.  There  are  two 
remedies  for  such  a  condition  that  are  perfectly  obvious  to 
us  and  were  no  less  obvious  to  the  gi*eat  men  of  that  period : 
First,  bring  the  people  in  contact  with  the  world  by  opening 
highways  of  trade  and  commerce  through  their  borders ; 
second,  place  a  free  school  within  reach  of  every  child  in 
the  State.  That  was  Murphey's  program,  that  was  Graham's 
program,  that  was  the  program  of  nearly  all  the  Whigs  of 


William  A.  Graham,  25 

the  period.  Some  talk  nowadays  of  the  ante-bellum  aris- 
tocracy standing  in  the  way  of  the  people's  enlightenment, 
of  their  progi'ess.  Not  so.  The  aristocrats  (if  I  may  use 
so  false  a  term  to  desigiiate  the  better  educated  class)  were 
the  progressives ;  the  reactionaries,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
were  the  neighborhood  political  bosses,  whose  principal  stock 
in  trade  was  an  attack  upon  the  kid-gloved  aristocracy,  as 
they  dubbed  the  Whigs  of  the  towns.  These  Whigs,  with 
some  notable  exceptions,  built  the  railroads  of  the  State. 
They,  again  with  some  notable  exceptions, 'laid  the  founda- 
tions of  our  public  school  system.  In  both  these  enterprises, 
Mr.  Graham  was  a  leader.  His  temperament  peculiarly 
fitted  him  to  be  a  pioneer  in  this  great  work.  The  influence 
and  training  of  his  father,  and  of  Dr.  Joseph  Caldwell,  sup- 
plemented by  association  with  Judge  Murphey,  made  internal 
improvements,  the  education  of  the  people  and  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  history  of  the  State  the  three  great  ends  that  he  set 
himself  to  secure  in  his  public  life.  With  him  it  was  a  calm, 
set  purpose,  to  be  worked  out  through  the  means  and  instru- 
mentalities -which  the  times  provided.  Those  means  were 
small,  and  the  instrumentalities  often  perverse  and  blind 
and  stupid,  yet  with  a  self-reliance  that  came  from  self- 
knowledge  as  well  as  knowledge  of  the  subject,  with  a  self- 
control  that  prevented  any  irritation,  he  pursued  his 
ends  with  a  placid,  but  firm  persistence,  which  was  not 
checked  by  any  rebuff  nor  daunted  by  any  defeat.  Through- 
out his  legislative  career,  during  his  incumbency  of  the 
gubernatorial  ofRce,  he  wa.s  constantly  stimulating  the 
ambition  and  State  pride  of  the  people  by  telling  them 
of  the  great  deeds  of  their  sires,  constantly  in  season  and 
out  of  season,  striving  to  enlighten  them  by  diffusing  the 
blessings  of  education  among  them  and  to  arouse  them  to 
effort  and  industry  by  bringing  the  highways  of  commerce 
to  their  doors.  Early  in  life  he  learned  the  great  lesson, 
that  in  a  democracy,  where  so  many  adverse  minds  are  to 
be  convinced,  the  progress  of  any  great  reform  is  necessarily 


26  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

slow,  that  often  it  is  the  work  of  more  than  one  generation, 
that  he  and  his  contemporaries  must  be  content  with  line 
upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little  and  there 
a  little,  leaving  to  the  future  the  fruition  of  their  hopes. 
Very,  very,  often  the  ideals  and  aspirations  of  the  great 
men  of  the  past  have  been  realized  in  the  everyday  life 
of  the  commonalty  of  the  present.  To  them  the  days  that 
were  to  come  are  the  wisest  witnesses. 

In  the  Legislature  of  1833-4  he  was  placed  upon  the 
Judiciary  Committee  and  the  Committee  on  Education.^ 
The  House  of  that  body  was  of  average  ability,  its  ablest 
members,  David  Outlaw,  D.  M.  Barringer,  W.  H.  Battle, 
Charles  B.  Shepard,  J.  R.  J.  Daniel,  James  Seawell,  Charles 
Fisher,  Daniel  W.  Courts,  and  the  Speaker,  William  J. 
Alexander.  It  was  in  session  fifty-five  days  including  Sun- 
days, enacted  184  laws,  only  twenty-four  of  which  were  pub- 
lic. Nineteen  academies  or  schools,  including  the  predeces- 
sors of  Wake  Forest  College,  Guilford  College  and  St.  Mary's 
at  Raleigh,  two  libraries,  three  gold  mining  companies,  one 
manufacturing  association  and  twelve  railroad  companies 
were  incorporated.  This  indicates  the  drift  of  public  senti- 
ment at  that  time.  The  Bank  of  the  Cape  Fear  was  rechart- 
ered,  and  the  Bank  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  the  Mer- 
chants Bank  of  New  Bern  and  the  Albemarle  Bank  of  Eden- 
ton,  were  chartered.  Mr.  Graham  was  the  author  of  a  bill, 
afterwards  enacted  into  a  law,  which  corrected  a  gross  in- 
equality in  the  criminal  laws  as  then  administered,  making 
one  guilty  of  grand  larceny  as  infamous  upon  conviction  as 
one  convicted  of  petty  larceny.^  He  was  on  a  committee 
to  inquire  into  the  right  of  Romulus  M.  Saunders  to  con- 
tinue as  Attorney-General  of  the  State  after  having  accepted 
a  commissionership  from  the  Federal  Government  on  the 
French  spoliation  claims.  He  wrote  the  report  in  favor  of 
Mr,  Saunders's  right. ^  His  argument  is  based  on  the  word- 
ing of  the  Constitution  of  1776 — "No  person  in  the  State 

'House  Journal,  142.        2  House  Journal,  182.        '  House  Journal,  252. 


William  A.  Graham.  27 

shall  hold  more  than  one  lucrative  office  at  any  one  time," 
and  also  upon  the  fact  that  the  offices  were  not  inconsistent. 
The  constitutional  prohibition  seems  upon  its  face  to  apply 
only  to  State  offices.  Especially  is  this  true  when  it  is  re- 
membered that  the  Federal  Government  was  not  in  exist- 
ence when  the  State  Constitution  was  adopted.  The  Legis- 
lature of  1833-4  adopted  the  report  thus  made  by  Mr.  Gra- 
ham, but  that  of  1834-5,  repudiating  that  view,  passed  a 
joint  resolution  that  the  office  of  Attorney-General  had  been 
vacated  by  Mr.  Saunders's  acceptance  of  the  Federal  Com- 
missionership,  and  Mr.  Saunders,  to  avoid  controversy,  but 
protesting  against  the  accuracy  of  this  legal  conclusion,  re- 
signed as  Attorney-General.  Mr.  Graham  adhered  to  his 
opinion  and  voted  against  the  resolution. 

He  was  sent  again  as  representative  from  Hillsboro  to  the 
Legislature  of  1834-5.  By  that  time  the  demand  for  an 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  1776  had  become  so  in- 
sistent that  it  could  no  longer  be  disregarded  with  safety 
to  the  peace  and  welfare  of  the  State.  Mr.  Graham  sup- 
ported the  "convention  bill  very  heartily.  During  its  con- 
sideration he  voted  against  the  provision  allowing  the  con- 
vention to  submit  the  election  of  governor  to  the  free  white 
vote  of  the  State,^  though  he  afterwards  voted  for  the  bill 
with  this  provision  in  it.  This  vote  was  afterwards  remem- 
bered to  plague  him  in  his  canvass  with  Mr.  Hoke  for  the 
gubernatorial  office  in  1844.  He  explained  that  he  was  never 
opposed  to  the  provision,  but  voted  against  it  while  the 
House  was  considering  the  bill,  section  by  section,  because 
he  was  informed  by  Mr.  Outlaw  of  Bertie  that  the  easter3i 
members,  without  whose  vote  the  bill  could  not  become  a 
law,  would  not  vote  for  it  with  that  provision  in  it,  so  he 
voted  against  that  to  save  the  bill  itself,  but  afterwards 
finding  that  the  bill  could  be  passed  with  that  provision  in 
it,  he  followed  what  was  his  inclination  all  the  time  by 
voting  for  it.     To  show  the  attitude  of  some  members  of  the 

1  House  Journal ,  1834-5,  220. 


28  NoKTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

House  on  this  provision  and  others,  at  first  its  advocates 
could  muster  but  thirty-five  votes,  while  there  were  ninety- 
four  against  it/  On  the  proposition  to  submit  the  election 
of  Supreme  and  Superior  Court  Judges  to  the  popular  vote, 
there  were  twenty-two  ayes  to  one  hundred  and  three  nays.^ 
On  the  proposition  to  debar  lawyers,  pleading  under  a  license, 
from  membership  in  the  Legislature,  the  vote  was  twenty 
ayes  to  one  hundred  and  ten  nays.^  At  this  session  Mr. 
Graham  was  again  on  the  Judiciary  Committee  and  was 
Chairman  of  the  Education  Committee,  In  the  latter 
capacity  he  made  a  report  January  3,  1835,  on  the  resources 
of  the  Literary  Fund,  and  the  best  means  of  improving  the 
same,  and  accompanied  the  same  by  a  bill  to  authorize  the 
Literary  Board  to  sell  certain  portions  of  the  swamp  lands 
belonging  to  it.*  This  bill  passed  the  House,  but  failed  in 
the  Senate.  Mr.  Hugh  McQueen,  of  Chatham,  at  this  ses- 
sion also  introduced  a  bill  in  the  Senate,  to  provide  a  fund 
for  the  establishment  of  free  schools.  This  passed  its  first 
reading,  and  was  then  laid  on  the  table.  By  joint  resolution 
of  the  General  Assembly,  however,  it  was  afterwards  ordered 
to  be  appended  to,  and  published  with,  the  laws  of  the  ses- 
sion. The  Literary  Fund  amounted  to  about  $180,000,  with 
the  hope  that  it  would  enlarge  at  the  rate  of  $15,000  or 
$20,000  per  annum,  through  the  sale  of  swamp  lands  and 
the  receipt  of  dividends  from  investment  of  its  capital.  This 
sum  was  wholly  inadequate  to  establish  any  general  system 
of  public  schools,  so  the  efforts  of  legislators  were  directed, 
for  the  present,  wholly  toward  increasing  it.  In  the  state 
of  public  sentiment,  thoy  did  not  dare  levy  additional  taxes. 
Indeed  conditions  among  the  people  were  so  wholly  adverse 
to  increased  taxation,  that  a  plan  that  involved  such  increase 
would  have  proven  utterly  futile. 

On  December  29,  1834,  Mr.  Graham  was  elected  by  the 
Legislature  a  trustee  of  the  Universitv,^  and  he  continued 


I  House  Journal,  220.        2  Ibid.,  221.        'Ibid.,     221. 

<Coon:  Public    Education    in    North    Carolina:   A   Documentary    History,   1790-1840, 
II.,     683  et  seq. 

'House  Journal,  223. 


William  A.  Graham.  29 

until  Ifts  death  to  be  actively  interested  in  all  of  the  affairs 
of  that  institution.  An  interesting  political  event  occurred 
at  this  session.  Judge  Wiley  P.  Mangum  and  Bedford  Brown 
v^^ere  the  senators  from  the  State  in  the  Federal  Congress. 
Mangum  voted  for  the  resolution  of  censure  on  Jackson  for 
removing  the  deposits,  passed  March  28,  1834,  and  refused  to 
vote  for  Benton's  resolution  to  expunge  the  censure.  The 
Legislature  of  1834-5  was  Democratic,  or  pro- Jackson,  and 
hence  opposed  to  Mangum.  It  instructed  Mangum  and  Brown 
to  vote  for  the  expunging  resolution.  While  the  House  was 
considering  these  instructions,  Mr.  Graham  delivered  a 
speech  of  remarkable  power  against  them.  He  had  just 
passed  his  thirtieth  birthday,  yet  this  speech  made  him  a 
leader  of  his  party,  the  Whig,  only  second  to  Mr.  Mangum 
in  influence  and  power.  It  had  so  great  an  effect  upon  his 
fortunes  and  is  so  characteristic,  that  these  alone  would 
justify  my  giving  it  in  full,  if  space  permitted.  It,  too, 
gives  a  remarkably  clear  and  just  view  of  the  conditions 
as  they  were  in  North  Carolina  at  that  period,  and  of  the 
political  issues  that  confronted  the  people. 

Mr.  Graham  was  again  member  of  the  House  of  Commons 
from  Hillsboro  in  the  Legislature  of  1835-6.  Among  the 
other  able  members  of  that  Legislature,  were  Matthias  E. 
Manly,  Kenneth  Rayner,  Thomas  L.  Clingman  and  Michael 
Hoke,  the  first  three  being  Whigs,  and  the  latter  a  Democrat. 
Mr.  Graham  was  his  party's  candidate  for  speaker,  but  was 
defeated  by  William  H.  Haywood,  the  vote  being  fifty-four  to 
sixty-eight.  He  was  again  on  the  Committee  on  Education, 
and  was  chairman  of  the  Judiciary  Committee.  He  intro- 
duced a  bill  incorporating  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston  Railroad, 
and  defended  it  during  all  the  stages  of  its  enactment  into  a 
law  against  a  vigorous  opposition.  It  was  the  first  railroad 
built  in  the  State.  There  was  much  discussion  of  the  division 
of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  public  lands  by  the  Federal 
Government  among  the  states,  and  a  resolution  was  adopted 

1  House  Journal,  97. 


30  ISToRTH  Carolina  Histokical  Commission. 

by  the  Legislature  that  they  ought  to  be  so  divided,  the  vote 
being  seventy  ayes  to  fifty-four  nays,  the  division  being  not 
along  party  lines,  Mr.  Graham  voting  aye.  Judge  Martin, 
having  resigned  as  one  of  the  judges  of  the  Superior  Court, 
Romulus  M.  Saunders  was  elected  by  a  vote  of  ninety-seven 
to  succeed  him.  On  the  last  ballot  Mr.  Graham  received 
sixty  votes,  and  the  Register  of  ]Srovember  22,  1835,  com- 
menting on  this,  says :  ''It  is  due  to  Mr.  Graham  to  state, 
that  though  strongly  solicited,  he  refused  to  suffer  his  name 
to  be  put  in  nomination.  Had  he  consented,  he  is  so  de- 
servedly a  favorite,  that  the  contest  would  have  been  a  very 
doubtful  one.  Mr.  Graham  is  a  young  man,  and  the  flattering 
vote  which  he  received,  under  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  case,  is  conclusive  evidence  of  his  elevated  standing  in 
the  State." 

The  new  Constitution,  having  gone  into  effect  on  January 
1,  1836,  and  boroughs  having  been  thus  abolished,  Mr.  Gra- 
ham was  a  candidate  before  the  people  of  Orange  County 
in  the  summer  of  1836,  to  represent  that  county  in  the 
Legislature  of  1836-7.  He,  for  the  first  time,  canvassed  the 
county  for  internal  improvements  and  for  the  distribution  of 
the  land  proceeds.  He  was  triumphantly  elected,  carrying 
with  him  also,  two  out  of  the  other  Whig  candidates  for  the 
House,  Orange  being  entitled  under  the  new  Constitution, 
to  four  representatives.  He,  however,  ran  one  hundred  and 
twenty-one  ahead  of  his  ticket. 

The  House  was  again  Democratic  by  a  small  majority; 
Haywood  received  sixty  votes  for  speaker  and  Graham  fifty- 
three.^  He  was  on  the  same  standing  committees  as  at  the 
last  session,  and  was  again  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Judiciary.^  He  was  also  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  the 
Ee^dsed  Statutes,  which  were  then  to  be  enacted  into  a  law, 
and  looked  carefully,  painstakingly  and  ably  after  their 
progress  through  the  House.  He  was  also  chairman  of  a 
joint  committee  of  both  houses  on  the  funds  to  be  received 


»  House  Journal,  243-4.        2  House  Journal,  268. 


William  A.  Gkaham.  31 

under  the  Deposit  Act  of  Congress,  and  as  chairman  pro  tern, 
of  the  committee  made  an  able  and  lucid  report  upon  the  dis- 
position of  that  fund,  accompanied  bj  bills  to  carry  the  sug- 
gestions of  the  committee  into  effect/  In  pursuance  of  the 
act  for  the  distribution  of  the  surplus  revenue,  nearly  $28,- 
000,000  were  deposited  with  the  states,  by  three  equal  pay- 
ments in  January,  April  and  July  of  1837.  North  Caro- 
lina's share  was  $1,433,757.39.  The  Graham  report  con- 
templated an  equal  division  of  this  fund  into  two :  one,  to 
constitute  a  fund  for  common  schools,  and  the  other,  a  fund 
for  internal  improvements.  It  very  strongly  reprehended 
the  diversion  of  any  portion  of  this  fund  to  meet  ordinary 
State  liabilities.  The  legislation,  however,  did  not  follov/ 
this  report  in  its  entirety.  $100,000  were  diverted  to  the 
payment  of  the  civil  contingent  expenses  of  the  State  Gov- 
ernment, $600,000  were  used  in  purchasing  bank  stock, 
$200,000  were  appropriated  to  draining  swamp  lands,  and 
$533,757.39  purchased  stock  in  the  Wilming-ton  and  Ualeigh 
Railroad. 

The  General  Assembly  of  1835-6  had  enacted  a  law  to 
regulate  the  mode  of  passing  private  acts.  After  the  enact- 
ment of  this  law,  the  Constitution  of  1835  went  into  effect. 
A  new  provision  was  incorporated  therein  that  the  General 
Assembly  shall  not  pass  any  private  law,  unless  it  shall  be 
made  to  appear  that  thirty  days  notice  of  application  to 
pass  such  law,  shall  have  been  given  under  such  directions 
and  in  such  manner  as  shall  be  provided  by  law.  Upon  this 
state  of  things  two  questions  were  submitted  by  the  Assem- 
bly of  1836-7  to  its  Judiciary  Committee,  of  which  Mr. 
Graham  was  Chairman:  First,  was  the  Act  of  1835  super- 
seded by  the  Constitution,  which  went  into  effect  January 
1,  1836,  in  such  way  as  to  render  it  inoperative  upon  the 
present  and  future  assemblies,  without  its  reenactment ;  sec- 
ond, what  is  the  line  of  demarkation  between  public  and 
private  acts?     Mr.  Graham  replied  to  these  questions  in  a 


1  Legislative  Documents,  1S35-9,  No.  15. 


32  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

very  able  and  luminous  report.  Except  as  restricted  by  the 
State  and  Federal  constitutions,  the  authority  of  the  General 
Assembly  to  legislate  is  plenary,  and  its  legislation  binds 
its  successors  until  altered  or  repealed  by  them.  The  Act 
of  1835  was  obnoxious  to  no  provision  of  the  Constitution 
of  1776,  and  being  in  entire  accord  with  the  provision  of 
the  new  Constitution,  quoted  above,  it  is  still  in  full  force 
and  effect.  Upon  this  point,  among  other  things,  he  said : 
''The  convention  has  not  only  not  taken  away  the  power  to 
enact  such  a  law,  but  virtually  ordained  that  it  should  be 
passed.  It  is  supposed  that  the  right  to  pass  it  is  derived 
from  the  amendment,  and  it  could  only  be  passed  by  a 
Legislature  convened  under  the  new  Constitution.  It  must 
be  observed,  however,  that  the  paragraph  of  the  amendment 
now  under  discussion,  confers  no  new  power  on  the  General 
Assembly,  but  forbids  the  exercise  of  an  old  one,  except  on 
certain  conditions..  The  legislative  power  of  the  General 
Assembly  extends  not  merely  to  the  present  time  and  events, 
but  may  prospectively  embrace  any  future  contingencies. 
The  law  in  question  might  have  provided  that  in  the  event  of 
the  adoption  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  advertise- 
ment of  application  for  private  acts  should  be  made  for  thirty 
days,  much  more,  when  it  was  authoritatively  announced  that 
the  amendments  had  been  adopted,  might  it  provide  to  give 
them  practical  operation.  A  wise  lawgiver  will  endeavor  as 
well  to  prevent  grievances  as  to  administer  remedies  for 
them.  To  have  enacted  no  law  in  reference  to  private  acts 
at  the  last  session  of  the  Legislature,  would  have  been  to 
exclude  any  private  bill  from  consideration  for  at  least  the 
first  thirty  days  of  this  session.  Your  committee,  therefore, 
deem  the  passage  of  the  said  act  to  have  been  both  consti- 
tutional and  expedient." 

In  answer  to  the  second  question  he  said:  "On  the  one 
hand  your  committee  have  felt  that  by  a  too  strict  interpre- 
tation of  the  term,  private  law,  much  useful  legislation 
might  have  been  prevented  at  the  present  session,  whilst  on 


William  A.  Gkaham.  33 

the  contrary  the  salutary  operation  of  this  section  of  the  Con- 
stitution would  be  wholly  abrogated  and  annulled,  unless  the 
General  Assembly  shall  affix  a  proper  construction  to  this 
term,  and  insist  on  its  enforcement  in  every  instance.  It 
can  hardly  be  supposed  that  the  judiciary  branch  of  the 
government  will  have  either  the  disposition  or  authority  to 
look  beyond  the  enactments  of  the  Legislature,  to  ascertain 
whether  they  were  passed  with  or  without  legal  notice  of 
their  introduction.  This  clause  of  the  amended  Constitution 
is  binding  therefore  only  on  the  conscience  of  the  legislator, 
and  is  dependent  upon  this  alone  for  its  observance.  Its 
true  meaning  is  for  that  reason  to  be  sought  with  greater 
diligence  and  adhered  to  with  more  vigor.  *  *  *  In  some 
statutes  special  clauses  have  been  inserted  declaring  that  those 
statutes  shall  be  held  and  deemed  public  acts,  but  this,  as  your 
committee  believe,  has  been  properly  construed  not  to  change 
the  character  of  the  acts,  but  merely  to  determine  the  manner 
in  which  they  shall  be  alleged  and  proved  in  courts  of  justice. 
Whether  a  statute  be  public  or  private  must  depend  on  its 
nature  and  object.  If  those  be  private,  the  statute  itself  can 
not  be  public,  notwithstanding  the  declaration  of  the  Legis- 
lature to  the  contrary;  nor  should  the  evasion  be  allowed  of 
inserting  provisions  of  a  public  kind  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
dispensing  with  the  necessity  of  advertising,  where  they  do 
not  belong  to  the  general  scope  of  the  particular  bill.  The 
general  description  of  public  acts  is,  that  they  relate  to  the 
interests  of  the  public  at  large ;  and  private,  that  they  relate 
to  individuals  and  their  interests  only.  This  vague  descrip- 
tion which  pervades  all  the  elementary  books  and  has  by 
many  been  mistaken  as  a  definition,  aifords  but  an  uncertain 
test  for  discrimination.  Your  committee  believe  that  the 
following  points  are  settled  by  adjudication  or  by  common 
consent,  to  wit,  that  all  acts  are  public: 

"1.  Which  concern  all  persons  generally. 

"2.  Which   affect   the   sovereign   in   any  of  his   rights  of 


34  North  Carolina  IIistoeical  Commission. 

sovereignty  or  property.  Hence  any  act  which  gives  a  penalty 
or  fine  to  the  State  is,  on  that  acconnt,  public. 

^'3.  Which  concern  the  officers  of  the  State,  whether  civil 
or  military. 

"4.  Which  concern  the  Legislature. 

"5.  Which  relate  to  trade  in  general,  or  the  public  high- 
ways or  navigable  rivers. 

"And  of  the^'^e  some  are  termed  public  local  acts,  and 
others  public  general  acts,  according  to  their  respective 
spheres  of  operation.  The  foregoing  summary  may  not 
embrace  all  acts  of  a  public  nature,  but  is  supported  by 
authority  so  far  as  it  extends,  and  may  be  useful  in  drawing 
the  line  of  distinction.  Private  acts  embrace  all  those  not 
falling  within  any  of  the  descriptions  aforesaid.  An  attempt 
to  define  them  more  particularly  is  unnecessary.  Your  com- 
mittee are  aware  that  the  precise  boundary  between  public 
and  private  acts  can  not  in  every  instance  be  determined 
by  the  rules  here  furnished,  but  they  are  gi-atified  by  the 
reflection  that  in  a  great  majority  of  bills  there  can  be  no 
question  as  to  their  character,  and  in  any  particular  case 
where  difficulty  may  arise,  the  foregoing  classification  may 
be  found  useful  if  not  decisive.  To  the  wisdom  of  the 
House  it  will  belong  to  apply  them  -with  proper  discrimi- 
nation, in  each  case  in  which  the  application  becomes 
necessary." 

I  reproduce  this  long  exti'act,  not  so  much  because  it  is  an 
admirable  statement  of  the  legal  principles  involved,  as  be- 
cause it  throws  light  upon  the  stage  of  mental  development 
at  which  he  had  arrived  when  he  was  only  thirty-two  years  of 
age,  and  also  upon  his  character.  This  constant  sense  of  the 
eternal  fitness  of  things,  this  assumption  that  because  power 
is  irresponsible,  it  is  the  more  incumbent  upon  those  who 
exercise  it,  to  exercise  it  with  the  utmost  circumspection  and 
caution,  characterized  all  his  utterances  and  actions  through- 
out his  whole  career. 

While  on  his  way  to  one  of  his  courts,  in  1836,  he  was 
so  injured  by  an  unruly  horse,  that  he  was  compelled  to  go 


William  A.  Gkaham.  35 

North  for  treatment  in  the  summer  of  1837.  Before  the 
accident,  it  was  understood  that  he  or  Judge  Mangum 
was  to  have  been  the  Whig  candidate  for  the  Federal 
House  of  Representatives.  Judge  Mangum,  however,  posi- 
tively declined,  and  insisted  that  Mr.  Graham  should  be 
nominated,  and  he  was  nominated  without  a  dissenting  voice. 
He  was  absent  at  the  Worth  until  a  few  days  before  the 
election.  He  could  make  no  canvass.  Instead  he  addressed 
an  open  letter  to  the  voters  of  the  district,  in  which  he  dis- 
cussed the  issues  of  the  day  and  offered  himself  as  a  candi- 
date for  their  suffrages.  Martin  Van  Buren  had  been  Presi- 
dent only  a  few  months,  and  the  country  was  in  the  throes 
of  a  severe  panic,  largely  induced  by  the  arbitrary  measures 
of  his  predecessor,  General  Jackson.  Mr.  Graham,  in  this 
letter,  thus  rapidly  describes  conditions  as  they  then  were : 
"Our  public  moneys  amounting  to  many  million  dollars 
have  been  paid  into  banks  which  are  unable  or  unwilling  to 
repay  the  government,  and  much  it  is  feared  will  never  be  re- 
paid at  all.  Bank  notes  which  constitute  by  far  the  largest 
portion  of  our  currency  are  no  longer  convertible  into  specie. 
Exchanges  are  destroyed,  so  that  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossi- 
ble, to  make  remittances  from  one  part  of  our  country  to  an- 
other, to  carry  on  the  necessary  commerce  between  it  and  for- 
eign nations.  Many  of  our  merchants  and  other  citizens,  both 
the  judicious  and  prudent  as  well  as  the  reckless  and  specu- 
lating, have  suddenly  and  unexpectedly,  both  to  themselves 
and  others,  become  insolvent.  Pecuniary  confidence  between 
man  and  man  has  been  greatly  abridged,  and  in  many  places 
destroyed.  The  gTeat  staple  productions  of  the  country 
have  fallen  in  price,  and  agricultural  as  well  as  mechanical 
labor  meets  with  insufficient  reward.  Our  immediate  sec- 
tion of  the  country  irom.  its  interior  position,  as  well  as 
other  causes,  is  happily  exempt  in  a  gTeat  measure  from  the 
calamities  which  oppress  others ;  but  no  section  can  long 
escape  unless  a  remedy  is  speedily  applied.  Every  section 
is  interested  in  the  safe-keeping  of  the  public  moneys,  the 


36  NoETH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

soundness  of  the  circulating  medium,  the  facilities  of  do- 
mestic trade  and  the  prosperity  of  our  foreign  commerce." 
His  remedy  was  a  national  bank,  such  as  that  which  was 
chartered  during  the  Washington  and  Madison  administra- 
tions. "I  believe,"  said  he,  "that  Congress  has  the  consti- 
tutional power  to  establish  such  bank,  and  I,  at  present  per- 
ceive no  measure  better  calculated  to  relieve  our  distresses. 
I  am  aware  of  the  danger  of  moneyed  power,  and  if  such 
a  corporation  can  not  be  so  restricted  as  to  be  incapable  of 
wanton  injury,  either  to  the  public  or  individuals,  it  should 
not  be  allowed.  But  the  legislative  power  must  be  lamentably 
impotent  if  it  can  not  fashion  the  creation  of  its  own  hands 
that  it  shall  be  accountable  to  the  law  for  its  conduct  and 
thus  prevent  its  abuses." 

And  he  concludes  thus :  "It  is  known  to  many  of  you  that 
I  did  not  concur  in  the  election  of  the  present  chief  magis- 
trate, and  should  a. competitor  be  presented  whom  I  prefer, 
I  probably  shall  not  do  so  at  the  next  election.  I  will  en- 
deavor, nevertheless,  whether  in  public  or  private  life,  to 
do  justice  to  his  measures,  and  should  deem  myself  altogether 
unworthy  of  your  confidence,  were  I  capable  of  opposing 
or  supporting  any  measure  on  account  of  the  sources  from 
which  it  springs.  My  first  wish  is  that  the  country  should 
be  well  governed,  rather  that  it  should  be  governed  by  any 
particular  set  of  men." 

The  Raleigh  Register  had  the  following  on  his  candidacy, 
issue  of  July  17,  1837:  "We  do  not  believe  there  lives  a 
man  who  can  with  truth  allege  aught  against  the  character 
of  Mr.  Graham.  We  say  of  our  own  knowledge,  that  he  is 
as  pure  a  public  man  as  we  ever  saw,  and  if  elected,  will  add 
greatly  to  the  learning,  talent  and  eloquence  of  the  House 
of  which  he  is  a  member,"  In  the  issue  of  July  31,  1837, 
he  is  designated  as  follows :  "A  man  whom  even  his  political 
foes  respect  for  his  acquirements,  and  honor  for  the  irre- 
proachable purity  of  his  private  character." 


William  A.  Graham.  37 

The  Standard  of  July  19,  1837,  took  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent view :  '^In  him  the  bank  Whigs  and  Wall  street  brokers 
will  have  as  warm  a  friend  and  as  ardent  a  champion  as 
they  desire.  *  *  *  ^\s  to  Mr.  Graham's  private  char- 
acter we  know  nothing  and  have  heard  nothing  against  it. 
He  is  a  man  of  talents,  but  he  can  never  be  great  among 
great  men,  ^'  *  *  Thongh  he  may  be  looked  npon  as 
estimable  as  a  man,  he  is  dangerous  as  a  politician." 

At  almost  exactly  the  same  time  and  in  England  another 
newspaper  writer  wrote  of  Mr.  Gladstone:  "He  is  a  man  of 
very  considerable  talent,  but  has  nothing  approaching  to 
genius.  His  abilities  are  much  more  the  result  of  an  ex- 
cellent education,  and  of  mature  study,  than  of  any  prodi- 
gality on  the  part  of  nature  in  the  distribution  of  her  mental 
gifts.  I  have  no  idea  he  will  ever  acquire  the  reputation 
of  a  great  statesman.^" 

Mr.  William  Montgomery  was  elected  by  191  majority, 
the  only  instance  in  Mr.  Graham's  long  public  life  in  which 
he  was  defeated  in  an  election  before  the  people  of  North 
Carolina. 

He  was  again  a  commoner  from  Orange  County  in  the 
Legislature  of  1838-9,  the  only  Whig  elected  in  that  county, 
all  his  colleagues  being  Democrats.  The  House,  however, 
was  Whig,  and  he  was  elected  speaker  over  Michael  Hoke, 
the  vote  being  sixty-one  to  forty-nine.  This  General  Assem- 
bly is  distinguished  by  its  enactment  of  the  first  comprehen- 
sive school  law.  Says  Mr.  Coon" :  ''Early  in  the  session  of  the 
Assembly  of  1838-9,  Mr.  Dockery  repeated  his  resolution 
relative  to  the  establishment  of  public  schools.  H.  G.  Spruill 
presented  a  resolution  and  a  plan  which  contemplated  divid- 
ing the  counties  into  school  districts  and  holding  an  election 
in  each  district  on  the  question  of  school  or  no  school.  The 
district  was  to  be  empowered  to  levy  a  tax  to  pay  one-half  the 
teacher's  salary,  the  other  to  be  paid  out  of  the  income  of  the 


•British  Senate,  Vol.  II,  54.    2 Coon:  Public  Education  in  N.  C,  I,  xliii. 


38  ]!^OKTH  Carolina  IIistoeical  Commission. 

literary  fund.  A  notable  feature  of  this  plan  was  the  sugges- 
tion that  every  district  refusing  to  establish  schools  should  be 
required  to  vote  on  the  question  every  year  until  they  were 
established.  The  plan  submitted  by  the  Literary  Board 
recommended  the  division  of  the  State  into  1250  districts, 
estimating  the  average  school  population  for  each  district  of 
108  children  between  the  ages  of  five  and  fifteen;  the  estab- 
lishment of  normal  schools  after  the  fashion  advocated  by 
President  Caldwell  some  years  before ;  the  holding  of  an  elec- 
tion ill  each  county  to  determine  whether  it  was  willing  to  levy 
a  tax  for  schools  in  amount  to  twice  the  sum  expected  from 
the  literary  fund ;  and  the  appointment  of  a  state  superin- 
tendent of  public  schools.  It  was  estimated  by  the  board  that 
the  income  of  the  school  fund  was  then  about  $100,000. 
This  amount,  added  to  $200,000  proposed  to  be  raised  by 
county  taxation,  would  pay  the  1250  teachers  each  a  salary 
of  $240  a  year.  The  suggestions  of  the  board  were  received 
with  considerable  interest.  Bills  to  carry  out  its  plans  were 
introduced  in  the  Senate  by  William  W.  Cherry,  and  in  the 
House  by  Frederick  J.  Hill.  Mr.  Cherry's  bill  did  not  con- 
template establishing  schools  until  another  meeting  of  the 
Assembly ;  Mr.  Hill's  bill  provided  for  their  immediate 
establishment.  *  *  *  The  net  results  of  the  education  ef- 
forts of  the  Assembly  of  1838-9  was  the  passage,  on  January 
Y,  1839,  of  a  law  submitting  the  question  of  schools  or  no 
schools  to  a  vote  of  the  i^eople  of  several  counties  in  August, 
1839.  A  favorable  vote  meant  a  county  tax  levy  of  one 
dollar  for  each  two  dollars  to  be  received  from  the  income 
of  the  literary  fund.  The  schools  established  were  to  be 
under  the  control  of  five  to  ten  county  superintlendents ; 
the  whole  territory  of  the  county  was  to  be  divided  into  no 
more  districts  than  one  for  each  thirty-six  square  miles,  and 
the  first  term  of  the  schools  in  each  district  was  to  be  con- 
ducted on  $20  of  county  taxation  and  $40  income  from  the 
literary  fund." 

No  member  of  the  Assemblv  to(ik  a  more  active  interest 


William  A.  Graham.  39 

in  the  enactment  of  this  law,  than  did  the  speaker,  Mr.  Gra- 
ham. Fonr  out  of  the  nine  sections  of  the  original  Honse 
bill  were  in  his  handwriting,  and  two  of  the  bills  finally 
adopted  by  the  Conference  Committee  were  also  in  his  hand- 
writing.^ It  is  said  to  have  been  adapted  from  the  New 
York  law^  on  the  same  subject. 

Mr.  Coon  very  finely  says  of  this  act":  ''While  the  school 
law  of  1839  was  not  a  very  satisfactory  measure,  it  marked 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  Individualism  was  now  gradu- 
ally to  give  way  to  community  spirit ;  selfishness  and  in- 
tolerance, which  only  desired  to  be  undisturbed,  must  now 
needs  give  place  to  measures  devoted  to  the  welfare  and  up- 
lift of  the  people ;  hatred  of  taxation  for  schools  must  now 
begin  to  disappear  before  the  davsming  of  that  wiser  policy 
that  no  taxation  is  oppressive  which  is  used  in  giving  equal 
educational  opportunities  to  all." 

Mr.  Graham  was  reelected  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons from  Orange  in  1840.  He  was  accompanied  by  two 
Whig  colleagues  to,  and  Mr.  Wiley  P.  Mangum  was  senator 
in,  the  General  Assembly  of  1840-1.  So  fair  and  impartial 
as  speaker  was  he  the  preceding  session  that  he  was  reelected 
unanimously  at  this.  The  meeting  of  the  Legislature  was 
immediately  after  the  triumphant  election  of  Harrison  and 
Tyler.  The  State,  falling  in  line,  had  given  the  Whig  ticket 
a  large  majority.  The  Democratic  Legislature  of  1835-6 
had  instructed  the  then  senators  in  CongTess,  Bedford  Brown 
and  Wiley  P.  Mangum,  to  vote  for  Benton's  expunging  reso- 
lution. Mangum,  denying  the  authority  of  the  Legislature  to 
instruct  him  how  to  vote,  voted  against  that  resolution,  and 
refused  to  resign.  In  the  campaign  of  1836  he  and  Brown, 
who  took  the  affirmative  of  the  right  of  the  Legislature  to 
instruct,  discussed  the  matter  largely  before  the  people  of 
the  State.  The  General  Assembly,  elected  that  year,  was 
Democratic  by  a  very  small  majority,  and  Mangum  inter- 
preting this  as  a  rebuke  of  his  own  course,  by  the  people 


iPub.  Ed.  in  N.  C,  II,  881  and  890.        2  Ibid,  I,  xlvii. 


40  North  Carolina  Historical  CoMiMissioisr. 

themselves,  resigned  and  was  succeeded  by  Robert  Strange, 
a  Democrat.  In  1838-9  conditions  were  reversed.  The  Ben- 
ton resolution  was  passed  by  the  Senate  January  16,  1837, 
both  Brown  and  Strange  voting  for  it.  The  General  As- 
sembly of  1838-9  was  Whig  by  a  substantial  majority.  Ken- 
neth Rayner,  on  December  4,  1838,  introduced  in  the  House 
of  Commons  a  series  of  resolutions  that  in  the  aggTcgate 
amounted  to  a  condensed  but  definite  statement  of  the  Whig 
faith,  the  first  resolution  containing  a  simple  allegation  that 
the  present  senators  had  not  truly  represented  the  people  of 
the  State  in  voting  for  Benton's  expunging  resolution,  and 
the  last,  being  as  follows:  '^That  our  senators  in  CongTess 
will  represent  the  wishes  of  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
State  by  voting  to  carry  out  the  foregoing  resolutions."  There 
is  no  doubt  that  these  resolutions  were  drawn  up  at  a  confer- 
ence of  the  Whig  leaders,  for  the  Register,  in  its  issue  of 
N'ovember  26,  1838,  said:  ''That  course  is  not  to  instruct 
them  as  their  party  instructed  Mangum  to  do  a  particular 
act  or  resign,  but  to  give  so  decided  and  unequivocal  an  ex- 
pression of  the  opinions  of  their  constituents,  that  they  can 
not  disregard  it,  unless  they  are  determined  to  set  at  naught 
the  popular  will  and  practically  assert  their  independence 
of  it."  So  every  amendment  in  the  House  and  in  the  Senate 
was  voted  down,  and  the  resolution  passed  the  former  body, 
without  dotting  an  i  or  crossing  a  t,  December  25th,  and  the 
latter,  December  27,  1838,  in  each  instance  by  a  strict  party 
vote,  so  far  as  their  essential  features  were  concerned.  Sena- 
tors Brown  and  Strange,  protesting  that  when  positive  in- 
structions were  given  them  they  would  either  vote  as  the 
General  Assembly  commanded  them,  or  resign,  by  a  letter 
to  that  body,  dated  December  31,  1838,  asked  for  more  au- 
thoritative instructions.  These  the  Legislature  never  gave. 
Messrs  Brown  and  Strange,  still  treating  these  resolutions 
as  an  expression  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  the  Legislature, 
which  did  not  concern  them,  refused  to  resign  until  June 


William  A.  Graham.  41 

30,  1840.  Their  resignations  were  accompanied  by  long 
ex2:)lanations,  the  gist  of  which  may  be  found  in  the  follow- 
ing: "My  resignation  is  not  prompted  by  a  belief  that  the 
resolutions  imposed  on  me  any  such  obligation,  but  from  an 
anxious  desire  to  submit  my  public  course  to  the  decision 
of  the  people  of  the  State,  which  would  have  been  done 
sooner,  if  an  election  had  sooner  intervened."  As  I  have 
already  said,  the  General  Assembly,  elected  the  second  Thurs- 
day in  August,  1840,  was  Whig  by  a  large  majority.  These 
vacancies  were  to  be  filled  by  it  at  its  coming  ISTovember  ses- 
sion. Bedford  Brown's  term  was  to  expire  March  4,  1841, 
Wiley  P.  Mangum  was  elected  to  fill  the  unexpired  term, 
and  also  for  a  full  term  commencing  at  that  date.  Robert 
Strange's  term  was  to  expire  on  March  4,  1843,  and  William 
A.  Graham  was,  on  ISTovember  24,  1840,  elected  to  fill  this 
by  a  vote  of  ninety-eight  for  himself  and  sixty-four  for 
Strange.  Both  candidates  were  selected  by  the  Whigs 
in .  caucus,  out  of  some  five  or  six  names.  Mr.  Mangum 
was  at  the  time  the  leader  of  the  Whig  party  in  the 
State.  By  general  consent  of  the  Whigs  at  large  he  was 
to  be  Mr.  Brown's  successor,  and  he  was  unanimously 
so  named  by  the  caucus.  It  was  a  very  gTcat  and  un- 
usual honor  that  the  Whigs  conferred  on  so  young  a  man 
as  Mr.  Graham  to  choose  him  out  of  five  candidates  as 
United  States  Senator,  when  he  was  a  resident  of  the  same 
county  as  Mr.  Mangum.  It  is,  too,  the  strongest  testi- 
mony to  his  ability  and  his  private  and  public  worth.  His 
selection  was  received  with  great  satisfaction  by  the  Whigs. 
Said  the  Register  of  November  27,  1840:  "He  is  a  states- 
man of  high  order,  is  a  powerful  debater,  and  combined  with 
these  qualifications  has  indefatigable  application.  His  vir- 
tues and  amiable  qualities  endear  him  to  all  who  know  him." 
The  Democratic  comment,  however,  was  rather  caustic,  on 
his  age,  his  lack  of  experience  and  his  geographical  situation. 


42  NoKTH  Carolixa  Historical  Commission. 

UNITED  STATES  SENATOR 

It  was  the  second  session  of  the  Twenty-sixth  Congress 
that  the  new  senators  first  attended.  Mr.  Mangiim  wa» 
sworn  in  on  December  9th,  and  Mr.  Graham,  December  10, 
1840.^  That  Congi'ess  was  Democratic,  both  in  the  House 
and  in  the  Senate.  The  Senate  was  composed,  then,  of  the 
ablest  men  in  pnblic  life  throughout  the  country.  From 
Alabama  there  were  AVilliam  R.  King  and  Clement  C.  Clay ; 
from  Delaware,  Thomas  Clayton ;  from  New  Jersey,  Samuel 
L.  Southard ;  from  Kentucky,  Henry  Clay  and  John  J. 
Crittenden ;  from  Missouri,  Thomas  Benton ;  from  Georgia, 
Wilson  Lumpkin ;  from  New  York,  Silas  Wright  and  Na- 
thaniel P.  Tallmadge ;  from  Massachusetts,  Daniel  Webster 
and  John  Davis ;  from  South  Carolina,  John  C.  Calhoun 
and  William  C.  Preston ;  from  New  Hampshire,  Franklin 
Pierce ;  from  Vermont,  Samuel  Prentiss,  and  from  Virginia, 
William  H.  Roane.  ■  Martin  Van  Buren's  term  as  president 
was  expiring,  and  his  last  annual  message  was  a  defense  of  the 
policy  of  his  administration.^  Especially  did  he  congi*atu- 
late  the  country  that  in  the  midst  of  the  very  trying  con- 
ditions which  confronted  it  at  the  outstart,  a  panic  and  the 
stoppage  of  specie  payments  by  the  banks  and  the  consequent 
loss  of  revenue  from  such  a  condition,  complicated  by  large 
expenditures  in  the  removal  of  the  eastern  Indians,  appro- 
priations for  which  had  already  been  made,  every  demand 
upon  it  at  home  or  abroad,  had  been  promptly  met.  "This 
has  been  done  not  only  without  creating  a  permanent  debt, 
or  resort  to  additional  taxation  in  any  form,  but  in  the 
midst  of  a  steadily  progressing  reduction  of  existing  burdens 
upon  the  people,  leaving  still  a  considerable  balance  of  avail- 
able funds  which  will  remain  in  the  treasury  at  the  end 
of  the  year.  *  *  *  The  policy  of  the  Federal  Government, 
in  extinguishing  as  rapidly  as  possible  the  national  debt,  and 
subsequently  in  resisting  every  temptation  to  create  a  new 
one,    deserves   to  be   regarded   in   the   same  favorable  light. 


1  Senate  Journal,  1840-1,  22.        2  Senate  Journal,  6,  et  seq. 


William  A.  Graham.  43 

Coming  into  office  the  declared  enemy  of  both  (a  national 
debt  and  a  national  bank),  I  have  earnestly  endeavored  to 
prevent  a  resort  to  either."  Mr.  Graham  was  placed  on  the 
Standing  Committee  on  Revolutionary  Claims  at  this  ses- 
sion.^ From  that  committee,  on  January  13,  1841,  he  re- 
ported a  bill  to  cause  monuments  to  be  erected  in  honor  of 
Brigadier-Generals  Francis  Nash  and  William  Davidson, 
favorably.^  He  accompanied  the  bill  with  a  special  report 
which  was  ordered  printed.  It  being  his  first  attendance, 
and  at  a  short  session  when  the  Democrats  had  a  majority,  he 
does  not  appear  to  have  taken  any  part  in  the  larger  debates, 
contenting  himself  with  a  constant  attendance,  voting  gen- 
erally with  his  party. 

The  Senate  of  the  Twenty-seventh  Congress,  at  the  call 
of  the  President,  met  in  special  session  on  March  4,  1841. 
Mr.  Webster,  having  been  nominated  as  Secretary  of  State 
by  Mr-.  Harrison,  had  resigned  and  was  succeeded  by  Rufus 
Choate.  Levi  Woodbury,  who  had  been  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  under  Van  Buren,  appeared  as  one  of  the  senators 
from  Verinont.  John  J.  Crittenden,  who  had  been  appointed 
Attorney-General,  was  succeeded  by  James  T.  Morehead. 
John  McPhersou  Berrien  appeared  from  Georgia,  and  Rich- 
ard H.  Bayard  from  Delaware.  The  leaders  of  the  Demo- 
crats were  Thomas  H.  Benton,  William  R.  King,  James 
Buchanan,  Silas  Wright  and  Levi  Woodbury ;  of  the  Whigs, 
Henry  Clay,  Thomas  Clayton,  Samuel  Prentiss,  William  C. 
Rives  and  Wiley  P.  Mangum.  The  AYhigs  had  a  majority  of 
seven.  This,  however,  was  merely  an  executive  session  to 
confirm  the  nominations  of  the  new  president,  Harrison. 
The  new  cabinet  was :  Daniel  Webster,  Secretary  of  State ; 
Thomas  Ewing,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  John  Bell,  Secre- 
tary of  War ;  George  E.  Badger,  Secretary  of  the  ISTavy ; 
John  J.  Crittenden,  Attorney-General,  and  Caleb  Grainger, 
Postmaster-General — a  very  able  company  of  counselors. 
At   Mr.    Clav's    sua:gestion.    President    Harrison    called   the 


1  Senate  Journal,  23.        =  ggnate  Journal,  101. 


44  IToRTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

Twenty-seventh  CongTess  to  meet  in  extra  session  on  May 
31,  1841.  Unfortunately  for  the  country  and  fatally  for 
the  Whig  party,  Mr.  Harrison  died,  after  a  short  illness, 
on  April  4,  1841,  and  was  succeeded  by  John  Tyler,  the 
Vice-President,  a  Democrat,  misplaced  in  the  Whig  party,  to 
the  confusion  and  dismay  of  all  who  wished  it  well.  The 
extra  session  began  at  the  time  appointed,  the  House  being 
also  Whig  by  nearly  fifty  majority.  The  progTam  of  the 
Whigs  as  announced  by  their  leader,  Mr.  Clay,  was:^ 

1.  The  repeal  of  the  sub-treasury  law. 

2.  The  incorporation  of  a  bank  ada])ted  to  the  wants  of 
the  people. 

3.  The  provision  of  an  adequate  revenue  (there  was  a 
deficit  at  the  time,  estimated,  of  $14,000,000),  by  the  impo- 
sition of  tariif  duties,  and  a  temporary  loan. 

4.  The  passage  of  the  necessary  appropriations. 

5.  The  prospective  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  public 
land  sales. 

6.  Some  modification  of  the  banking  system  of  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia. 

Of  the  general  legislation  involved  in  this  program,  all 
was  frustrated  by  the  veto  of  President  Tyler,  except  the 
repeal  of  the  sub-treasury  law  and  the  temporary  loan. 

The  chairmen  of  the  standing  committees  of  the  Senate 
were  chosen  by  the  ballot  of  the  senators.  Mr.  Graham  was 
elected  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Claims,^  a  very  im- 
portant position  for  so  new  and  so  young  a  senator.  He 
was  also  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Revolutionary 
Claims,^  and  was  appointed  a  member  of  a  select  com- 
mittee on  so  much  of  the  President's  message  as  related  to 
a  uniform  currency,  and  a  suitable  fiscal  agent,  by  Mr.  South- 
ard, president  pro  tem.  of  the  Senate.*  Remembering  that 
one  of  the  greatest  evils  of  the  times  was  the  wholly  inade- 
quate currency  system,  this  was  one  of  the  most  important 

>  Senate  Journal,  1841,  24.         *  Senate  Journal,  18.         '  Senate  Journal,  20.         «Senate 
Journal,  20. 


William  A.  Gkaham.  45 

committees  of  the  Congress,  and  it  was  composed  of  very 
able  senators, — Mr.  Clay,  chairman ;  Mr.  Choate,  Mr. 
Wright,  Mr.  Berrien,  Mr.  King,  Mr.  Talhnadge,  Mr.  Bay- 
ard, Mr.  Graham  and  Mr.  Huntington.  As  above  said,  how- 
ever, all  the  measures  of  this  committee  were  made  futile  by 
the  veto  of  the  President. 

At  the  second  session  of  the  Twenty-seventh  Congress, 
Mr.  Graham  was  continued  as  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Claims,  but  was  transferred  from  the  Committee  on 
Revolutionary  Claims  to  that  on  Pensions.^  He  presided 
over  the  Senate  as  president  pro  tempore  on  February  lY, 
1842."  He  was  appointed  second  on  the  special  Committee 
on  Retrenchment,  on  February  28th.^  On  March  31st*  Mr. 
Clay  retired  from  the  Senate,  and  was  succeeded  by  his 
friend  and  follower,  John  J.  Crittenden,  who,  with  all  the 
rest  of  the  original  cabinet  except  Mr.  Webster,  had  resigned 
the  preceding  September.  ''I  want  rest,"  wrote  Mr.  Clay, 
'^aijd  my  private  affairs  want  attention.  jSTevertheless  I  would 
make  any  personal  sacrifice,  if  by  remaining  here  I  could 
do  any  good ;  but  my  belief  is,  I  can  effect  nothing,  and  per- 
haps my  absence  may  remove  an  obstacle  to  something  being 
done  by  others." 

As  I  have  said,  the  administration  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  had 
left  to  the  administration  of  Mr.  Tyler  an  inheritance  of 
debt,  and  the  compromise  tariff  measure  of  1833,  working 
automatically,  had  reduced  the  revenues  below  the  necessary 
expenses  of  the  government.  There  was  an  annually  increas- 
ing deficit.  The  special  session  of  1841  had  authorized  a 
temporary  loan  of  $12,000,000,  to  tide  over  immediate 
embarrassments.  Coupled  with  that  measure  was  one  re- 
quiring the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  public 
lands  among  the  states,  this  distribution,  however,  to  be  sus- 
pended whenever  the  necessities  of  the  treasury  required  an 
increase  of  the  tariff  duties  above  the  twenty  per  cent  fixed 
by  the  compromise  of  1833.     To  raise  the  duties  above  this 


1  Senate  Journal,  1841-2,  22.       2  Senate  Journal,  173.        3  Senate  Journal,  188.      «  Senate 
Journal,  262. 


46  XoETH  Cakolina  Historical  Commission. 

twenty  per  cent  level  was  absolutely  necessary  to  secure  an 
adequate  revenue  for  the  expenses  of  the  government.  Thus 
any  further  distribution  of  these  funds  among  the  states 
could  not  be  made.  Indeed  such  was  the  condition  of  the 
treasury,  that  Congress  was  compelled  at  the  ensuing  session 
to  extend  the  loan  of  1841  and  add  $5,000,000  thereto.  The 
Democrats  wished  to  devote  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the 
public  lands  to  the  gradual  liquidation  of  this  temporary 
loan.  This  the  Whigs  opposed,  and,  having  a  majority,  de- 
feated. It  was  while  the  bill  authorizing  this  loan  was  pend- 
ing that  Mr.  Graham  made  his  first  set  speech,  April  13, 
1842.  He  first  shows  that  during  the  four  years  of  the  Van 
Buren  administration,  the  expenses  of  the  government  ex- 
ceeded its  revenue  by  $31,000,000 ;  that  this  deficit  was  re- 
duced to  $5,500,000,  by  the  application  of  $26,000,000  of 
extraordinary  funds,  $17,000,000  of  surplus  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  administration,  $9,000,000  of  which  should  have 
been  the  fourth  installment  of  the  deposit  ■of  land  pro- 
ceeds with  the  states,  and  $9,000,000  were  received  from 
debts  due  the  United  States,  principally  for  the  sale  of  its 
stock  in  the  late  Bank  of  the  United  States ;  that  they  not 
only  diverted  this  capital  to  the  payment  of  the  ordinary 
expenses  of  the  government,  but  they  were  compelled  to 
borrow  $5,500,000  more  by  the  issue  of  treasury  notes  to 
meet  their  extravagant  expenditures,  and  this  legacy  of  debt 
they  have  left  to  the  Tyler  administration.  ''To  meet  this 
deficiency,  what  have  we  ?  Instead  of  surplus,  we  have  debt. 
Instead  of  extraordinary  means  falling  in,  we  have  a  daily 
increasing  charge  of  interest.  Instead  of  a  tariff  of  forty 
per  cent,  we  have  one  nearly  approaching  20  per  cent,  and 
that  upon  little  more  than  half  the  imports.  What  then  is 
to  be  done?  *  *  *  Mr.  President,  our  whole  duty  in 
this  emergency  seems  to  be  comprehended  in  three  propo- 
sitions : 

"1.  Borrow  such  sum,  upon  the  best  terms  we  can  obtain. 


William  A.  Graham.  47 

as  will  relieve  our  present  necessities,  and  save  the  public 
honor  from  disgrace. 

"2.  Reduce  our  expenses  to  the  lowest  point  which  is  con- 
sistent with  an  efficient  public  service. 

"3.  Levy  such  duties  upon  imports  as  are  necessary  for  an 
economical  administration  of  the  government,  and  no  more." 

The  Democrats  had  suggested  that  the  Tyler  administra- 
tion could  relieve  itself  of  all  its  financial  difficulties  by  de- 
manding the  return  of  the  $28,000,000  of  land  proceeds  al- 
ready distributed  among  the  states.  Mr.  Graham  proceeds 
in  a  calm,  courteous  and  well-reasoned  argument  to  show- 
that  such  extraordinary  funds  were  not  to  be  devoted  to  the 
ordinary  expenses  of  the  government,  according  to  the  scheme 
of  the  Constitution  itself,  even  if  thev  could  surmount  the 
impracticableness  and  injustice  of  the  scheme  of  taking  back 
from  the  states  the  money  w^hich  had  been  so  recently  de- 
posited with  them.  "I  have  said,  Mr.  President,  that  the 
authors  of  the  Constitution  did  not  rely  upon  the  public 
lands  as  a  means  for  the  ordinary  maintenance  of  govern- 
ment, and,  in  my  humble  opinion,  to  eifectuate  their  design 
to  make  this  a  government  of  limited  powx^rs,  confined  to 
comparatively  few  objects,  it  ought  to  be  restricted  to  those 
modes  of  supply  pointed  out  in  the  Constitution.  All  history 
will  verify  the  fact,  that  those  nations  have  been  most  re- 
markable for  purity  and  correctness  of  administration,  for 
the  strictest  accountability  of  public  agents,  and  have  longest 
preserved  their  liberties,  who  have  kept  their  ruling  powers 
constantly  dependent  upon  the  contributions,  direct  or  in- 
direct, annually  levied  upon  the  people.  As  a  certain  writer 
has  remarked,  'They  who  would  trample  on  their  rights  are 
restrained  by  the  want  of  their  money.'  This  general  truth 
applies  with  tenfold  force  to  a  government  like  that  of  the 
United  States,  far  distant  from  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
whom  it  aifects,  and  so  complicated  in  its  structure  and  so 
diversified  in  its  operations,  that,  to  keep  up  a  minute  know!- 


48  North  Carolina  Historical  CoMMissioi«r. 

edge  of  its  details  of  administration,  federal  politics  must 
be  made,  to  a  great  extent,  an  exclusive  profession.  That 
period  of  our  history,  when  peculation  and  embezzlement 
were  most  rife,  when  the  responsibility  of  pul)lic  officers  was 
least  rigid,  when  salaries  were  unregulated  and  the  gains 
in  many  offices  were  almost  what  their  holders  desired,  and 
when  appropriations  were  most  extravagant,  was  the  period 
which  I  have  reviewed  in  the  first  part  of  these  remarks 
(Van  Buren's  administration),  when  revenue  was  not  re- 
dundant but  grossly  deficient,  but  there  were  surpluses  and 
extraordinary  means  in  your  coffers,  which  the  administra- 
tion had  nothing  to  do  with,  but  to  expand.  Think  you, 
sir,  that  in  any  other  state  of  the  treasury,  a  district  attorney 
would  have  been  allowed  to  receive  emoluments  gi'eater,  by 
more  than  one-half,  than  the  salary  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States— greater  according  to  his  own  declaration 
when  about  to  leave  office,  'than  any  citizen  of  a  free  re- 
public ought  to  receive' ;  that  marshals,  collectors  of  customs 
and  postmasters,  would  have  been  permitted,  like  Roman 
proconsuls,  to  enrich  themselves  to  immense  fortunes  out 
of  the  offices  created  for  public  benefit  alone,  and  oftentimes, 
by  like  instances  of  official  abuses — abuses  to  which  no  cor- 
rective was  applied  until  the  third  of  March,  1841,  the  very 
last  day  of  the  late  administration,  when  a  clause  was  in- 
serted in  the  appropriation  bill — a  kind  of  bequest  to  pious 
uses  upon  the  deathbed  repentance,  spoken  of  by  the  sena- 
tor from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  Preston),  restraining  the  com- 
pensation of  these  functionaries  to  $0,000  per  annum,  for 
the  future." 

On  May  31,  1842,  Mr.  Mangum  was  elected  president 
pro  tern,  of  the  Senate  in  the  place  of  Mr.  Southard,  of 
ISTew  Jersey,  who  had  resigned,  thus  making  a  vacancy  on 
the  Finance  Committee.^  Mr.  Graham  was  appointed  to 
fill  this  vacancy.^  A  question  about  which  there  was  much 
discussion  at  this  session  was  the  redistricting  of  the  country 

1  Senate  Journal,  1841-2,  366.        2  Ibid,  377. 


William  A.  Graham.  49 

according  to  the  census  of  1840.  The  Democrats  were  in 
favor  of  leaving  the  matter  of  electing  members  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  by  districts  or  by  a  general  ticket  to  the 
legislatures  of  the  various  states.  Mr.  Graham  v^as  in  favor 
of  Congress  determining  this  question  for  itself  and  of  its  re- 
quiring the  legislatures  to  lay  off  contiguous  districts  con- 
taining a  certain  number  (70,680)  of  voters,  thus  in  effect 
prohibiting  the  election  of  representatives  by  general  ticket. 
On  June  3,  1842,  he  made  a  very  able  speech  sustaining  this 
view.  He  discusses  it,  first,  from  the  standpoint  of  expedi- 
ency and,  second,  from  the  standpoint  of  its  constitutionality. 
In  concluding  the  latter  branch  of  the  discussion,  he  said: 
''But  we  are  told  we  have  no  power  to  pass  this  law,  because 
we  can  not  enforce  its  execution  by  penal  sanctions ;  and  an 
urgent  appeal  is  made  to  us  by  the  senator  from  Kew  Hamp- 
shire (Mr.  Woodbury)  to  know  whether  an  armed  force  or 
a  writ  of  mandamus  is  to  be  sent  to  the  state  legislatures  to 
compel  them  to  lay  off  the  districts.  ISTo,  sir,  neither.  ]N^o 
one  ever  conceived  the  idea  of  compelling  a  free  legislative 
assembly  to  do,  or  not  to  do,  anything  by  physical  force, 
or  the  precept  of  a  court  of  justice.  The  crime  of  omission 
or  commission  in  their  constitutional  duty,  like  that  of 
parenticide  among  the  Athenians,  is  provided  with  no  legal 
sanction,  but  left  to  the  oaths  and  consciences  of  men,  to  an 
accountability  to  public  opinion,  and  to  that  constituency 
whose  rights  have  been  outraged  or  neglected.  The  preserv- 
ation of  this  government  greatly  depends  on  the  faithful 
fulfillment  of  the  duties  imposed  by  the  Constitution  on  the 
state  legislatures.  If  a  majority  of  them  shall  fail  to  elect 
senators  (as  one  has  done),  if  five  or  six  of  those  in  the 
largest  states  shall  fail  to  make  regulations  for  choosing 
electors  of  president  and  vice-president,  in  conformity  to  the 
laws  of  Congress,  the  IJuion  would  be  as  effectually  dissolved 
as  if  we  who  are  sent  to  the  legislative  halls  of  the  capitol 
should  obstinately  refuse  to  attend  in  our  places  and  pass 


50  XoKTH  Cakolixa  Histoeical  Commission. 

the  laws  annually  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  is  faith,  honor,  conscience,  and  not  the  hangman's 
whip,  on  which  at  last  rest  the  blessings  of  this  noblest  human 
institution  which  has  ever  been  devised  for  the  security,  the 
welfare  and  the  happiness  of  man.  The  duties  of  the  states, 
under  our  Constitution,  are  not  to  be  determined  by  their 
liability  to  punishment,  but  by  the  covenants  into  which  they 
entered  by  that  instrument." 

At  this  session  of  Congress  a  tariff  bill  was  passed.^  It 
represented  fairly  the  Whig  idea  of  a  tariff,  i.  e.  for  revenue 
with  incidental  protection.  The  President  had  already  stated 
his  objection  to  a  bilP  that  contained  a  provision  continuing 
the  distribution  of  the  public  land  sales.  Mr.  Graham  was 
with  the  Democrats  in  nearly  all  the  reductions  proposed 
by  them  during  the  consideration  of  the  bill,  and  voted 
against  it  on  its  third  and  final  reading.  He  was  very 
earnestly  in  favor  of  continuing  the  distribution  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sale  of  public  lands,  and  this  bill  being  a  sur- 
render to  the  President  on  this  subject,  he  could  not  vote  for 
it  without  stultifying  his  o^vn  record.  Compared  with  the 
present  it  was  an  exceedingly  moderate  protection  measure, 
not  averaging  more  than  thirty  per  cent.  Moderate,  however, 
as  protection  was  at  that  period,  he,  being  a  southerner,  was 
even  more  moderate.  He  said  himself  in  his  letter  accept- 
ing the  Whig  nomination  for  governor,  December  18,  1843: 
''I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  that  whilst  I  think  the  govern- 
ment should  collect  the  least  amount  of  money,  which  may  be 
necessary  for  an  efficient  public  service,  in  laying  duties  to 
raise  such  sum,  I  would  incidentally  afford  protection  to 
American  interests,  w^hen  they  were  deemed  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  deserve  it,  as  well  as  counteract  the  effects  of 
restrictive  regulations  on  our  trade  by  foreign  nations 
wherever  it  should  appear  expedient  to  do  so.  *  *  *  I 
did  not  vote  for  the  tariff  now  existing.  Some  of  its  duties 
were  higher  than  I  approved,  but  in  the  vacant  condition  of 

'Senate  Journal,  1841,  251.        2 Ibid,  643. 


William  A.  Gkaham.  51 

the  treasury,  I  would  not  have  withheld  from  it  my  support 
had  an  amendment  which  I  offered,  proposing  a  distribution 
of  the  proceeds  of  the  public  lands  among  the  states,  been 
incorporated  in  the  bill." 

At  the  third  session  of  the  Twenty-seventh  Congress, 
1842-3,  he  was  again  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Claims, 
second  on  the  Committee  on  Finance,  and  second  on  the 
Special  Committee  on  Retrenchment. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  Mr,  Graham  w^as  only  thirty- 
eight  years  and  five  months  old  when  his  term  as  United 
States  Senator  expired  in  March,  1843,  and  consider  the 
influential  position  he  had  taken  in  that  august  body,  we 
need  no  stronger  evidence  of  his  ability,  his  faithfulness 
and  his  industry.  The  functions  of  the  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Claims,  at  that  time  when  there  was  no  court 
of  claims,  were  very  much  like  that  of  a  chancellor  presid- 
ing over  a  court  of  equity.  Many  important  matters  were 
presented  to  that  committee  while  Mr.  Graham  was  chair- 
man, matters  which  involved  the  reading  and  digesting  of  a 
great  mass"  of  written  evidence,  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  law  and  of  justice  to  the  case  under  consideration, 
and  finally  the  rendering  of  the  written  opinion  in  such  form 
as  to  carry  conviction  to  the  minds  of  the  great  lawyers  and 
eminent  statesmen,  who  constituted  the  body  to  which  the 
report  was  made.  ISTone  of  his  reports  was  perfunctory,  and 
some  of  them  show  such  industrious  mastery  of  detail,  such 
capacity  for  sifting  out  the  strong  from  the  weak,  the  true 
from  the  false,  from  a  great  mass  of  conflicting,  or  obscure, 
or  false  testimony,  such  clearness  in  statement  of  conclu- 
sions of  fact  and  enunciation  of  legal  and  constitutional 
principles  applicable  to  them,  that  we  are  convinced  he  would 
have  made  a  great  chancellor  as  well  as  a  great  senator,  if 
fair  opportunity  had  presented  itself.^ 

The  Legislature  elected  in  North  Carolina,  in  1842,  was 
largely  Democratic    in    both    branches.      Mr.   Romulus  M. 

1  See  his  Report,  Harris-Farrow  Claim,  3  Senate  Doc,  27th  Con.,  3d  Session,  No.  157. 


52  KoRTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

Saunders  and  Mr.  Bedford  Brown,  both  Democrats,  were 
candidates  to  succeed  Mr.  Graham,  and  divided  the  votes  of 
that  party  between  them,  while  the  Whigs  voted  to  a  man 
for  Mr.  Graham.  On  December  20,  1842,  Mr.  Graham's 
name  was  withdrawn  from  the  ballotting,  and  the  next  day 
Mr.  William  H.  Haywood,  Jr.,  was  elected  senator.  Says 
the  Raleigh  Register  of  December  23,  1842 :  "The  elevation 
of  this  gentleman  over  the  head  of  all  of  the  leaders  of  the 
genuine  Democracy  is  a  strong  exhibition  of  political  leger- 
demain, in  which,  however,  we  believe  he,  himself,  had  no 
hand.  (As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  not  in  Raleigh  at  the 
time.)  *  *  *  At  the  beginning  of  the  session,  Judge 
Saunders  was  taken  up  as  a  representative  of  the  Calhoun 
wing  of  the  party,  while  the  Hon.  Bedford  Brown,  being 
the  beau  ideal  of  pure  locofocoism,  was  the  nucleus  about 
which  the  elements  of  Van  Burenism  rallied.  It  was  in  vain 
that  caucus  after  caucus  was  held.  The  friends  of  Saunders, 
regarding  his  success  as  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  Mr. 
Calhoun,  would  not  give  way,  though  in  a  minority.  On  the 
other  hand,  many  of  Brown's  friends  at  an  early  period  de- 
clared that  they  would  prefer  Mr.  Graham  to  Judge  Saunders, 
and  some  of  them  affirmed  that  in  no  event  could  they  be 
brought  to  the  support  of  any  man  tainted  with  nullification." 
After  Mr.  Graham's  withdrawal  on  the  19th,  the  Whigs 
had  no  candidate,  but  voted,  some  for  Saunders,  and  others, 
scattering.  When  the  Democrats,  however,  centered  upon 
Mr.  Haywood,  they  again  voted  as  a  body  for  him,  the  final 
ballot  standing  Haywood  ninety-five  and  Graham  sixty-nine, 
with  two  scattering. 

FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

At  the  end  of  his  term  of  service  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  Mr.  Graham  returned  to  the  practice  of  the  law  at 
Hillsboro.  But  the  people  of  jSTorth  Carolina  were  not  ml- 
ling  that  he  should  remain  long  out  of  their  service. 

The  Whigs  throughout  the  State,  while  they  were  intensely 


William  A.  Graham.  53 

indiguaiit  at  what  they  regarded  as  Mr.  Tyler's  treason  to 
their  party,  were  not  discouraged  by  it.  They  turned  as 
one  man  to  Mr.  Clay,  as  their  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency in  1844,  and  to  Mr.  Graham  as  their  candidate  for 
governor.  The  Whig  State  Convention  was  held  in  Raleigh 
December  7,  1843,  and  Mr.  Graham  was  unanimously  and 
with  great  enthusiasm  chosen  as  its  candidate  for  governor. 
It  was  with  some  sacrifice  of  his  financial  interests  that  he 
accepted  this  nomination.  He  said  in  his  letter  of  accept- 
ance, December  18,  1843:  "But,  however  gratifying  to  an 
honorable  pride,  your  communication  awakens  feelings  also 
of  a  different  character.  It  breaks  in  upon  my  plans  of 
life,  my  professional  and  agricultural  pursuits,  and  demands 
a  sacrifice  of  interests  which  can  not  well  be  spared  from  my 
family.  I  had  therefore  most  earnestly  and  anxiously  hoped 
that  the  choice  of  the  convention  would  have  fallen  on  some 
one  of  those  able  and  virtuous  citizens,  whose  names  have 
been  connected  with  this  subject  and  whose  disinterestedness 
and  zeal  in  the  Whig  cause,  is  only  equaled  by  their  devotion 
to  its  principles.  Nevertheless,  with  my  conceptions  of  duty 
(however  much  I  had  wished  it  otherwise)  I  have  no  alter- 
native but  to  accept  the  nomination.  Without  stronger  rea- 
sons than  any  I  have  to  urge,  I  could  not  hold  any  other  per- 
son justified  in  refusing  a  call  from  such  a  source,  to  lend 
his  name  and  his  efforts  to  the  support  of  principles,  which, 
I  verily  believe,  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  enduring  pros- 
perity and  happiness  of  the  country."^ 

Mr.  Graham's  opponent  was  a  personal  friend  and  fellow 
county-man,  Michael  Hoke,  of  Lincoln.  Mr.  Hoke  was 
young  (only  thirty-four  years  of  age),  ardent  and  able.  He 
was  considered  the  most  promising  of  the  younger  Democrats 
of  the  State,  had  great  personal  magnetism,  was  a  fine  de- 
bater and  universally  popular.  He  was  a  man  of  irreproach- 
able character  and  had  a  great  deal  of  humor,  but  it  was  a 


1  Note. — He  was  urged  very  strongly  by  Senator  Mangum  and  Mr.  James  W.  Osborne 
not  to  accept  this  nomination,  that  his  proper  place  was  in  the  U.  S.  Senate,  and  this 
would  prevent  his  being  considered  for  that  place. 


54  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

kindly,  genial  humor  that  left  little  sting  behind  it.  His 
death,  on  September  9,  1844,  from  a  fever  contracted  in  the 
eastern  part  of  the  State  during  this  campaign,  was  a  gTeat 
loss  to  the  State,  and  it  was  deplored  scarcely  less  by  his 
political  opponents  than  by  his  party  associates.  The  cam- 
paign was  arduous,  the  candidates  occasionally  meeting  in 
joint  discussion.  Graham,  more  learned,  more  experienced, 
calmer,  more  dignified  and  impressive ;  Hoke,  more  nimble, 
quicker,  brighter  and  more  entertaining.  The  Graham-Hoke 
campaign  was  long  spoken  of  in  the  State  in  very  much  the 
same  terms  that  we  speak  of  the  Vance-Settle  campaign  of 
1876,  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  history  of  the 
State.     Mr.  Graham  was  elected  by  3,153  majority. 

Here  is  a  contemporary  estimate  of  Mr.  Graham  which  I 
give.  It  is  that  of  a  political  follower,  but  allowing  some- 
thing for  natural  partiality  and  exaggeration,  its  essential 
features  present  him  very  near  as  he  was:  '^Governor  Gra- 
ham dignifies  and  adorns  everything  he  touches.  Such  grace, 
such  elegance,  such  ease,  such  candor  and  so  much  placid 
eloquence,  were  never  seen  before  concentrated  in  one  man. 
He  can  not  fail  to  acquire  the  attention  of  his  audience,  and 
when  acquired,  he  keeps  it  chained  with  a  magic  spell.  We 
have  seen  speakers  who  seemed  as  if  they  snatched  the  very 
lightnings  and  thunders  of  heaven  to  assist  them  in  over- 
powering the  senses  and  arousing  the  passions  of  their 
hearers ;  we  have  seen  those  who  appeared  to  make  the  very 
walls  laugh  with  ancedote  and  the  air  boisterous  with  mirth ; 
we  have  seen  those  whose  plain,  matter-of-fact  statements  fell 
with  convincing  force  upon  the  judgTiient,  but  in  so  cold  and 
formal  a  manner  that,  although  we  were  compelled  to  ac- 
knowledge the  force  of  the  argument  and  the  solidity  of  the 
facts,  we  could  not  forget  the  repulsive  manner  of  the 
speaker ;  but  never  have  we  seen  so  due  a  degree  of  the  excel- 
lences of  a  public  speaker  united  in  one  man  as  in  Governor 
Graham.  He  is  possessed  of  a  lofty  dignity  without  haughti- 
ness,   ease   without    affectation,    talent   without    vanitv,    and 


William  A.  GKAHA:\r.        ■  55 

principles  which  have  the  respect  of  even  those  who  enter- 
tain others."  Of  course  the  tone  of  this  is  exaggerated,  but 
after  all  it  is  simply  truth  somewhat  colored.  Governor 
Graham  had  a  very  fine  and  noble  presence.  He  was  at  this 
time  the  handsomest  man  in  public  life  in  North  Carolina. 
The  tones  of  his  voice  were  mellow  and  harmonious,  and, 
though  not  strong,  well  modulated.  His  action  was  free, 
easy  and  graceful,  on  occasion  warming  into  energy.  His 
matter  was  carefully  arranged  so  as  to  give  his  argument 
the  effect  of  cumulation.  He  was  fair  in  statement,  and 
perfectly  honest  and  sincere  in  the  positions  he  took.  His 
public  addresses,  though  always  orderly  arranged,  are  never 
closely  reasoned.  He  knew  the  danger  of  the  logical  short 
cut  in  dealing  with  public  questions.  Its  beauty  and  force 
could  be  appreciated  only  by  the  initiated,  and  such  were 
not  his  fellow-citizens  whom  he  was  addressing.  He  very 
seldom  dealt  in  sophistry.  Indeed  so  practical  a  mind  as  his 
could  rarely  do  so.  In  short  the  matter  of  his  public  speeches 
was  interesting  and  instructive,  while  his  manner  was  always 
attractive; 

On  January  1,  1845,  he  was  installed  as  governor,  the 
oaths  of  office  being  administered  by  the  Chief  Justice, 
Ruffin,  in  the  Commons  Hall,  in  the  presence  of  both  houses. 
He  then  delivered  his  inaugural  address.  After  a  merely 
cursory  glance  at  the  relations  of  the  State  to  the  Federal 
Government,  in  which  he  condemned  the  practice  of  devoting 
so  much  of  our  public  discussions  to  Federal  topics,  he  con- 
fines himself  to  the  problems  which  were  to  confront  him  in 
his  coming  administration.  ''That  these  important  concerns 
of  the  nation  should  be  objects  of  constant  observation  and 
active  vigilance  is  to  be  expected  and  desired;  but  that  they 
should  be  so  to  the  exclusion  of  those  immediate  interests 
which  come  to  our  homes  and  our  firesides,  and  which  are 
wisely  retained  under  state  jurisdiction,  is  a  misfortune  to 
be  deprecated.  If  we  glory  in  the  name  of  American  citizens, 
it  should  be  with  feelings  akin  to  filial  afi^cction  and  ffrati- 


56  ISToKTH  Carolina  Histokical  Commission. 

tude,  that  we  remember  we  are  North  Carolinians ;  and  that 
the  preservation  and  prosperity  of  our  system  and  its  ability 
to  secure  the  permanent  and  habitual  attachment  of  the 
people,  depend  quite  as  much,  nay  much  more,  upon  an  en- 
lightened policy  and  a  correct  administration  in  the  state 
governments  than  in  that  of  the  union.  *  -  *  ]^orth 
Carolina,  possessing  a  soil,  upon  the  average  not  above  the 
medium  grade  of  fertility,  but  yielding  fruitful  returns  to 
patient  toil  in  our  generally  salubrious  climate ;  excluded  by 
the  nature  of  our  sea  coast  from  any  enlarged  share  in  the 
commerce  of  the  world,  her  people  have  been  inured  to  self- 
reliance,  industry  and  economy.  The  natural  fruits  of  this 
situation  have  been  personal  independence,  unostentatious 
self-respect,  habits  in  general  of  morality,  obedience  to  the 
law,  fidelity  to  engagements,  public  and  private,  frugality 
in  expenditures  and  loyalty  to  the  government,  the  offspring 
of  the  simple  manners  and  honest  and  manly  character  of  its 
citizens."  He  then  proceeds  to  show  the  necessity  for  con- 
tinued efforts  to  provide  an  adequate  common  school  system, 
and  the  means  for  creating  an  adequate  market  for  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  people:  ''If  we  can  not,  without  too  great  a 
loss  of  profits,  send  our  staples  to  existing  markets,  we  must 
endeavor  to  bring  a  market  nearer  to  them,  by  inducing 
capital  to  come  to  the  State,  by  utilizing  local  capital  in  the 
establishment  of  various  industries  for  which  the  State  could 
provide  so  much  raw  material,  by  the  building  of  more  rail- 
roads and  better  local  highways.  Our  country  must  be  made 
to  hold  out  the  hope  and  expectation  of  acquiring  the  means 
of  comfortable  livelihood  and  a  reasonable  accumulation,  or 
its  population  can  not  be  expected  to  remain,  nor  its  resources 
to  increase.  While  labor  is  the  true  foundation  of  national 
wealth,  it  may  be,  much  aided  in  its  efforts  by  the  kind  and 
upholding  hand  of  government."  He  concludes  thus:  "In 
our  past  history  we  have  gained  a  high  character  for  the 
virtues  of  honesty  and  fidelity.  Thus  far  our  escutcheon 
is  unstained,  the  public  faith  has  been  kept,  the  public  honor 


William  A.  Gkaham.  57 

is  inviolate.  And  whatever  tests  may  await  us  in  the  future, 
let  us  fervently  unite  our  invocations  to  that  good  Providence. 
who  has  so  signally  upheld  and  preserved  us  heretofore,  that 
our  beloved  North  Carolina  may  still  be  permitted  to  walk 
in  her  integrity,  the  object  of  our  loyalty  and  pride,  as  she 
is  the  home  of  our  hearts  and  affections." 

The  Register  of  January  8,  1845,  commented  on  this  ad- 
dress as  follows:  "We  have  never  seen  a  larger  or  more 
intelligent  assemblage  on  a  similar  occasion  in  our  State ; 
and  we  can  say  without  disparagement  to  others  that  the  ad- 
dress of  Governor  Graham  on  the  occasion  was  decidedly  the 
best  inaugural  we  have  ever  heard,  or  have  ever  seen  from 
any  of  the  state  executives  of  the  union.  It  speaks  the  words 
of  truth  and  soberness  to  our  sister  states  and  counsels  our 
own  in  a  language  of  the  soundest  wisdom." 

One  of  the  iirst  problems  with  which  Governor  Graham 
had  to  deal  was  the  foreclosure  of  the  State's  mortgage  on  the 
Raleigh  &  Gaston  Railroad.  The  building  of  railroads  was, 
of  course,  a  new  thing  in  ITorth  Carolina.  The  lack  of  ex- 
perience in  such  work,  as  usual,  wrought  its  own  penalty. 
It  cost  more  than  it  should,  and  was  operated  badly — ex- 
pensively and  inefficiently.  The  State  had  made  itself  liable 
as  surety  on  $787,000  of  its  bonds.  The  company  had  failed 
to  pay  even  the  annual  interest  on  these  bonds,  and  the 
State  was  forced  to  pay  both  interest  and  a  part  of  the  prin- 
cipal. Legal  proceedings  were  instituted  for  the  foreclosure 
of  all  the  mortgages  on  all  of  the  property  of  that  company 
at  the  Spring  term,  1845,  of  the  Wake  County  Court  of 
Equity.  But  owing  to  the  resistance  made  by  the  company, 
and  the  decision  of  the  Superior  Court  in  their  favor,  an 
appeal  was  rendered  necessary  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
the  decree  of  foreclosure  was  postponed  to  the  fall  term  of 
that  year.  The  cost  of  the  road  was  $1,500,000,  and  it 
brought  at  the  foreclosure  sale,  on  the  bid  of  the  State, 
through  Governor  Graham,  $363,000. 

The  Le2,"islature  of  1844-5,  also,  made  it  the  dutv  of  the 


58  NoETH  Carolina  Histosical  Co:mmission'. 

Governor  to  collect  the  memorials  of  the  Revolutionary  his- 
tory of  the  State.  In  pursuance  of  this,  Governor  Graham 
wrote  to  Judge  Francis  Xavier  Martin,  of  Louisiana,  on 
February  8,  1845:  "Presuming  that  your  researches  when 
engaged  in  writing  the  history  of  the  State  put  you  in  pos- 
session of  many  of  the  letters  of  these  early  governors  (Cas- 
well, Nash  and  Burke),  as  well  as  other  documents  of  great 
interest  to  our  people,  I  have  to  request  as  a  special  favor 
to  I^orth  Carolina  that  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  communi- 
cate to  me  any  of  our  public  documents  of  the  description 
desired,  which  may  be  under  your  control ;  or  that  you  will 
inform  me  as  early  as  your  convenience  will  permit,  where 
copies  of  them  may  be  procured."  But  Judge  Martin,  as  he 
wrote  Governor  Graham  on  March  29,  1845,  had  collected 
no  material  so  late  as  the  administrations  of  early  governors. 
He  corresponded  also  with  Miss  Mary  Burke,  the  only  sur- 
viving child  of  Governor  Burke,  and  it  was  by  her  consent 
that  the  Burke  papers,  then  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  James 
Webb,  of  Hillsboro,  were  turned  over  to  Governor  Swain. 
On  March  5,  1845,  he  issued  a  circular  letter  to  the  people 
of  the  State,  reciting  the  resolution  of  the  Legislature  and 
giving  in  detail  the  public  documents  already  discovered  in 
the  capitol  and  describing  those  missing  and  desired,  and 
requesting  them  to  cooperate  with  him  in  the  preservation  of 
the  memorials  of  the  Revolutionary  period.  The  early  part 
of  his  first  administration,  too,  was  much  occupied  with  the 
preliminaries  to  the  establishment  of  a  school  in  Raleigh  for 
the  deaf,  dumb  and  blind. 

He  met  his  first  Legislature  in  I^ovember,  184G,  with  an 
elaborate  and  very  able  message,  dealing  largely  with  the 
finances  of  the  State.  The  average  expenditure  for  the  ordi- 
nary support  of  the  government  at  that  time  was  $67,500 
per  annum.  At  the  same  time  the  income  from  ordinary 
sources  of  revenue  averaged  $83,000,  the  excess  of  which, 
over  and  above  ordinary  expenses,  was  devoted  to  the  account 
of  rebuildino"  the  capitol.  interest  on  the  State's  debt  until 


William  A.  Graham,  59 

it  was  liquidated  in  full  and  to  liabilities  of  the  railroad 
companies.  After  showing  that  the  income  could  be  largely 
increased  by  an  adequate  assessment  of  the  lands  and  polls 
in  the  State  (there  had  been  no  reassessment  of  lands  in  ten 
years),  he  proceeds:  '^l^o  valuation  can  continue  to  be  a 
just  criterion  of  worth  for  any  considerable  period,  and  a 
reassessment  should  be  provided  for  once  at  least  in  five 
years,  if  it  be  not  annually.  By  adopting  these  measures  of 
fairness  and  justice,  to  collect  what  is  now  imposed  without 
increase  of  taxes,  it  may  reasonably  be  expected  that  the 
public  revenue  from  present  sources,  now  equal  to  about 
$86,000,  may  be  raised  to  $100,000  per  annum."  He  then 
recommends  a  specific  tax  upon  pleasure  carriages,  gold 
watches  kept  for  use  and  other  articles  of  luxury,  to  go  into 
operation  at  once,  and  to  continue  in  force  until  the  ex- 
piration of  the  next  session  of  the  General  Assembly.  ''In 
advising  therefore  but  a  temporary  provision  for  extra  tax- 
ation, I  am  influenced  by  the  consideration,  that  possibly 
it  may  not  longer  be  required,  rather  than  a  fear  of  any 
aversion  of  our  constituents  to  contribute  whatever  may  be 
needed  to  redeem  the  public  obligations,  however  incautiously 
or  unfortunately  entered  into.  The  odious  doctrine  that  a 
State  may  refuse  or  postpone  the  fulfillment  of  contracts 
guaranteed  by  her  public  faith  and  sovereign  honor,  has  no 
resting  place  in  all  our  borders,  and  I  am  yet  to  hear  of  a 
single  exception  to  the  unanimity  of  our  people  upon  this 
subject." 

There  were  at  the  time  many  railroad  schemes.  Among 
others  were  two  proposed  railroads  into  South  Carolina,  one 
from  Wilmington,  which  was  by  this  Legislature  incorpo- 
rated as  the  Wilmington  and  Manchester,  and  one  from 
Fayetteville.  Governor  Graham,  while  not  opposing  these 
projects,  was  very  much  in  favor  of  a  railroad  from  Fay- 
etteville to  Salisbury  or  Charlotte,  and  thence  into  South 
Carolina.  And  the  Legislature  did  grant  a  charter  to  the 
Charlotte  and  South  Carolina  Railroad. 


60  IJ^ORTH  Carolina  Histokical  Commission. 

At  that  time  our  common  school  system  was  in  its  infancy, 
only  $95,578  being  distributed  by  the  State  for  its  support. 
Governor  Graham  recommended  that  the  office  of  Commis- 
sioner of  Common  Schools  be  created,  and  that  it  be  filled 
by  one  charged  with  the  superintendence  of  the  system 
throughout  the  State,  and  devoting  his  whole  time  and  at- 
tention in  imparting  to  it  vigor  and  usefulness.  ''The  sub- 
ject is  of  sufficient  weight,  especially  in  the  infantile  stage 
of  these  institutions,  to  engage  the  best  talents  and  most 
exalted  patriotism  of  the  country." 

In  May,  1840,  the  President,  Polk,  called  for  one  regi- 
ment of  volunteer  infantry,  to  be  enrolled  and  held  in  readi- 
ness to  aid  in  the  prosecution  of  the  existing  war  with  the 
Republic  of  Mexico.  Governor  Graham,  in  response,  issued 
his  proclamation,  and  with  a  most  commendable  prompti- 
tude, said  he,  more  than  three  times  the  number  required 
tendered  thieir  service.  Capt.  S.  L.  Fremont,  the  army  of- 
ficer appointed  by  the  Federal  Government  to  muster  this 
regiment  into  service,  wrote,  after  he  had  performed  this 
service  and  was  leaving  the  State:  "Public  men  may  differ 
about  the  justice  of  the  war,  but  the  good  people  of  the  Old 
ISTorth  State  have  shown  that  in  a  foreign  war,  they  know 
no  party  but  their  country,  and  no  country  but  their  own." 
Governor  Graham's  attitude  toward  the  Mexican  War  was 
that  held  by  most  of  the  leading  Whigs  of  the  period,  i.  e. 
it  was  unnecessary,  if  not  criminal,  and  was  brought  on  not 
by  the  annexation  of  Texas,  but  by  President  Polk's  pre- 
cipitancy in  sending  General  Taylor  to  take  possession  of  the 
territory  in  dispute  between  the  State  of  Texas  and  the 
Republic  of  Mexico.  War  being  flagrant,  however,  every- 
thing must  be  done  to  make  the  arms  of  the  United  States 
successful. 

To  some  degree  Mr.  Graham's  first  term  as  governor  was 
devoted  to  carrying  out  the  plans  of  the  previous  adminis- 
tration (Morehead's)  or  that  had  been  inaugurated  by  the 
General  Assembly  of  1844-5,  such  as,  for  instance,  saving 


William  A.  Geaham.  61 

the  State  harmless  from  the  bankruptcy  of  the  Raleigh  and 
Gaston  Railroad  and  the  Clubfoot  and  Harlows  Creek  Canal, 
and  directing  the  settlement  of  the  accounts  between  the 
State  and  insolvent  purchasers  of  the  Cherokee  lauds  and 
their  bondsmen.  In  all  these  matters  he  demonstrated  his 
very  superior  ability  as  an  administrator.  Especially  was 
this  the  case  in  his  management  of  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston 
Railroad.  Had  it  not  been  for  a  fire  in  February,  1848,  by 
which  the  machine  shops  and  engine  house  were  destroyed 
and  its  stationary  engine  and  four  locomotives  were  seriously 
damaged,  it  would  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  have  been 
made  a  profitable  investment.  There  had  been  occasional 
discussions  of  amendment  to  our  penal  code  which  would 
moderate  in  harshness  and  provide  a  penitentiary  for  a  cer- 
tain class  of  offenders  from  1791  on,  notably  so  in  1817  and 
in  1822,  but  nothing  definite  had  been  done  until  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  1841-5.  The  governor  was  directed  to 
secure  statistics  from  states  in  which  the  penitentiary  system 
then  prevailed  and  submit  the  same  to  the  people  before  an 
election  to  be  held  under  the  Act.  Governor  Graham, 
through  an  extensive  correspondence,  did  collect  the  data 
desired  and  published  the  same  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
State  in  the  early  summer  of  1846.  Under  the  act,  the 
question  of  a  penitentiary  or  no  penitentiary  was  submitted 
to  the  joeople  at  the  time  of  the  election  for  goveruor  in 
August  of  that  year.  The  election  seems  to  have  gone  by 
default  against  any  change,  the  vote  for  it  being  very  small. 
So  satisfactory  to  his  own  party  and  to  the  people  of  the 
State  was  his  first  term  as  governor,  that  in  January,  1846, 
Governor  Graham  w^as  nominated  for  a  second,  by  a  largely 
attended  and  very  enthusiastic  Whig  convention,  and  the 
following  August  was  reelected  by  a  great  majority  (7,850), 
over  his  Democratic  opponent,  James  B.  Shepard.  Mr. 
Shepard  was  a  man  of  fine  ability  and  w^as  a  good  speaker, 
but  he  had  inherited  wealth,  so  was  disinclined  to  the  drudg- 
ery of  politics  and  of  the  bar.     His  candidacy  and  canvass 


62  NoETH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

against  so  popular  and  efficient  a  governor  as  Mr.  Graham 
was,  of  course,  a  forlorn  hope.  Mr.  Graham,  had,  by  this 
time,  become  unquestionably  the  leader  of  the  Whig  party 
in  the  State.  He  practically  dictated  the  policy  of  that 
party.  I  do  not  use  the  term  dictate  in  an  offensive  sense, 
for  he  was  too  courteous  a  gentleman  and  too  wise  a  public 
man  ever  to  assume  a  dictatorial  manner.  His  knowledge 
of  the  people  was  so  extensive  and  so  accurate,  that  his  party 
associates  had  the  utmost  confidence  in  the  soundness  of  his 
judgment  in  all  matters  of  policy,  and  so  almost  invariably 
adopted  his  views  after  a  conference,  or  if  on  rare  occasions 
they  overruled  him,  had  cause  to  regret  it,  as  subsequent 
events  showed  their  wisdom.  As  a  party  leader,  it  is  quite 
probable  that  he  was  never  excelled  by  any  man  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  State. 

In  the  General  Assembly  of  1848-9,  the  two  parties  were 
tied  in  both  House  and  Senate,  so  a  compromise  was  made 
by  which  R.  B.  Gilliam,  Whig,  was  elected  Speaker  of  the 
House  and  Calvin  Graves,  Democrat,  was  elected  Speaker  of 
the  Senate.  The  principal  subjects  for  consideration  by  this 
Legislature  were  the  establishment  of  a  State  Hospital  for 
the  Insane  at  Raleigh,  the  disposition  of  the  Raleigh  and 
Gaston  Railroad  and  the  charter  of  the  I^orth  Carolina  Rail- 
road. Governor  Graham  gives  his  views  at  large  on  all  these 
topics  in  his  last  biennial  message.  He  concludes  his  recom- 
mendation of  a  State  Hospital  as  follows  "A  distinguished 
person  of  the  gentler  sex,^  who  has  devoted  much  of  her  life 
to  the  pious  duty  of  pleading  the  cause  of  the  lunatic  before 
States  and  communities,  has  recently  traversed  a  considerable 
part  of  this  State  in  search  of  information  respecting  these 
unfortunates  among  us,  and  will  probably  ask  leave  to  pre- 
sent their  cause  to  you  at  an  early  day.  I  can  not  too  ear- 
nestly commend  the  cause  itself,  or  the  disinterested  benevo- 
lence of  its  advocate." 

There  is  no  more  dramatic  incident  in  the  history  of  the 
State  than  Miss  Dix's  appeal  to  this  Legislature,  Mr,  Dob- 

1  Dorothea  L.  Dix. 


William  A.  Gkaha.m.  63 

bins's  great  speech,  and  the  passage  of  the  act  on  January 
29th,  1849,  but  it  is  without  the  scope  of  this  paper. 

Governor  Graham's  views  in  regard  to  the  disposition  of 
the  Raleigh  and  Gaston  Railroad  were  so  interwoven  with 
those  on  the  charter  of  the  North  Carolina  Railroad,  that  I 
discuss  them  together.  He  said  in  his  message  that  there 
were  only  three  modes  of  disposing  of  the  former  road:  1st, 
a  resale  to  existing  stockholders  by  compromise  of  the  suits 
now  pending,  if  suitable  terms  be  offered ;  2d,  retain  it  as  a 
permanent  property  of  the  State  after  repairing  it  in  the  best 
manner ;  and,  3d,  to  unite  it  with  another  work  through  the 
interior  of  the  State.  The  last  was  the  plan  which  he 
urged  very  forcibly  upon  the  Legislature  in  his  regular  mes- 
sage and  in  two  special  messages  sent  to  the  Senate.  His 
idea  was  to  fill  in  the  missing  link  between  Raleigh  and 
Columbia,  S.  C,  in  the  great  chain  of  railways  from  I^ew 
York  to  N'ew  Orleans  by  incorporating  and  building  a  rail- 
road to  be  called  the  I^orth  Carolina  Railroad,  from  Raleigh 
to  Salisbury,  and  thence  on  to  Charlotte,  where  it  would  con- 
nect with  'the  Charlotte  and  Columbia  road,  already  char- 
tered and  then  being  built.  The  details  of  his  plan  may  be 
summarized  thus :  Private  individuals  to  subscribe  $500,000. 
As  soon  as  the  Board  of  Internal  Improvements  should  be 
satisfied  that  these  subscriptions  were  in  good  faith  and  sol- 
vent, the  suits  then  pending  against  delinquent  subscribers 
to  the  stock  of  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston  road  should  abate,  the 
new  corporation  was  to  be  formed  and  the  State  to  convey  that 
road  to  it.  He  estimated  that  the  cost  of  the  new  road  would 
be  not  more  than  $2,500,000,  and  of  this  the  State  was  to 
assume  half,  but  the  conveyance  of  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston 
road  was  to  be  in  lieu  of  $500,000  of  the  State's  subscrip- 
tion. The  $500,000,  subscribed  privately  as  above  said,  were 
to  be  used  first  in  putting  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston  road  in 
thorough  repair  and  good  condition,  and  the  balance  was  to 
be  expended  in  building  the  new  road  toward  Salisbury  from 
Raleigh.    He  estimated  that  there  would  be  about  forty  miles 


64  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

thus  completed.  After  so  much  of  the  work  should  be  done, 
then  the  State  was  to  advance  such  further  sum  as  might  be 
necessary  to  complete  the  road,  the  amount  paid  by  the  State, 
however,  to  be  always  in  equal  proportion  to  those  paid  by 
private  stockholders.  His  scheme  also  comprehended  the 
building  later  a  railroad  from  Raleigh  to  Goldsboro  and 
one  from  some  point  east  of  the  Yadkin  to  Fayetteville,  and 
still  later  one  from  Goldsboro  to  Beaufort.  As  is  well  known 
this  scheme  was  not  adopted  in  its  entirety.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  was  only  through  many  concessions  and  compromises 
in  the  face  of  very  determined  opposition  that  the  North 
Carolina  Railroad  was  chartered.  The  Democratic  speaker 
of  the  Senate,  Calvin  Graves,  fully  aware  of  the  conse- 
quences of  his  act,  committed  political  suicide  when  he  broke 
the  tie  in  the  Senate  in  favor  of  the  railroad.  Governor 
Graham  supported  this  measure  sincerely,  though  it  was 
some  modification  of  his  own.  He  is  said  to  have  drawn  the 
whole  bill,  which  was  introduced  in  the  Senate  by  Mr.  Wil- 
liam S.  Ashe,  of  New  Hanover,  and  was  certainly  the  author 
of  section  45  to  the  end  of  the  act.  (Laws  1849-9,  chapter 
82.)  If  any  one  could  be  said  to  have  been  the  father  of  the 
North  Carolina  Railroad,  where  there  were  so  many  taking 
an  active  and  efficient  part  in  its  inception,  certainly  it  was 
Governor  Graham.  Ground  was  broken  for  the  new  railroad 
by  Calvin  Graves  in  the  presence  of  a  large  crowd  at  Greens- 
boro, on  July  11th,  1851.  Governor  Graham  was  then  in 
Washington  City,  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  so  could  not 
attend  this  meeting,  but  he  wrote  a  letter,  which  was  read  to 
the  assembly  and  from  which  I  extract  the  following:  "To 
the  friends  of  this  enterprise,  with  whom  I  have  been  proud 
to  cooperate  in  the  darkest  hours  of  its  fate,  as  well  as  to  all 
the  good  citizens  of  the  State,  who  shall  participate  in  the 
celebration  of  its  happy  commencement,  I  offer  my  hearty 
congratulations  and  good  wishes.  *  *  *  I  look  forward  to 
the  day  of  its  final  completion,  as  a  time  of  deliverance  not 
merely  from  the  shackles  of  commercial  bondage,  but  from 


William  A.  Graham,  65 

the  domiuioii  of  prejudice  and  error,  which,  however  hon- 
estly entertained,  have  been  the  bane  of  our  prosperity." 

There  were  three  measures  that  he  repeatedly  urged  upon 
both  of  his  Legislatures,  but  in  vain :  1st,  the  appointment 
of  a  state  commissioner  of  education ;  2d,  the  abolition  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  county  courts  over  pleas ;  and,  3d,  a  more 
modern  and  more  efficient  system  for  the  maintenance  of 
public  roads. 

This  summary  of  the  leading  events  and  measures  of  Gov- 
ernor Graham's  two  administrations  shows  how  wise  and 
practical  he  was  in  dealing  with  the  affairs  of  the  State. 
Adopting  a  phrase  of  his  own,  ''he  devoted  himself  to  those 
noble  studies,  by  which  States  are  made  prosperous  and  their 
people  happy,"  and  the  knowledge  thus  acquired  he  applied 
wisely  to  the  service  of  his  native  State.  His  messages, 
addresses  and  other  state  papers  were  systematically  ar- 
ranged, businesslike  and  practical,  indicating  hard,  intelli- 
gent, apprehending  and  appreciative  labor.  Their  style  was 
pellucid,  flowing  and  attractive,  yet  dignified  and  impressive 
In  the  weight  of  their  matter,  in  the  orderliness  of  its 
arrangement  and  in  the  attractiveness  of  their  vehicle,  they 
compare  well  with  the  state  papers  of  any  man  at  any  period. 

TO  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

At  the  end  of  his  last  term  as  Governor,  in  January,  1849, 
Mr.  Graham  returned  to  the  practice  of  his  profession  at 
Hillsboro  and  in  the  adjoining  counties. 

General  Taylor  was  inaugurated  as  President  in  March  of 
that  year.  The  end  of  the  Mexican  War,  with  the  cession  of 
a  vast  territory  to  the  United  States,  presented  many  serious 
problems  to  the  Taylor  administration.  That,  however, 
which  assumed  an  exceedingly  threatening  aspect  and  ab- 
sorbed most  painfully  the  attention  of  the  whole  country,  was 
what  was  and  should  l>e  the  legal  and  constitutional  status 
of  slavery  in  the  newly  acquired  territory.  The  i^orth, 
speaking  generally,  was  determined  that  there  should  be  no 
5 


66  j^oRTH  Carolij^a  Historical  Commission. 

extension  of  slave  territory,  while  the  South,  standing  npon 
its  clear  rights  under  the  Constitution,  was  equally  deter- 
mined that  the  new  territory  should  be  open  to  settlement  by 
slaveholders  if  they  so  desired,  without  any  interference 
with  their  slave  property.  iNTever  in  the  history  of  this 
country  has  there  appeared  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  so  splendid  an  array  of  talent,  of  statesmanship  and 
ardent  patriotism  as  in  the  Senate  of  the  Thirty-first  Congress 
at  its  first  session,  yet  never  was  there  so  plain  an  illustration 
of  the  futility  of  all  the  wisdom  of  the  wisest  of  men  when  set 
in  opposition  to  that  march  of  events,  which  is  controlled  only 
by  the  infinite  wisdom  of  Providence.  These  wise  men  could 
bring  about  a  compromise  which  could  postpone  for  a 
moment  the  final  catastrophe, — that  is  all. 

Mr.  Graham  was  a  very  much  interested  and  sympathetic 
observer  of  all  the  events  which  led  up  to  Mr.  Clay's  famous 
compromise,  and  was  in  frequent  communication  with  the 
senators  from  I^orth  Carolina,  Messrs.  Badger  and  Mangmm. 
He,  himself,  supported  that  measure  without  reserve.  In 
the  summer  of  1849,  President  Taylor  offered  him  his  choice 
of  the  missions  to  Russia  and  to  Spain.  Fortunately  for  his 
State  and  country,  he  had  no  inclination  to  a  foreign  appoint- 
ment. On  July  4th,  1850,  the  President  was  much  exposed 
to  a  hot  sun,  and  contracted  a  fever  from  which  he  died  on 
the  9th.  The  Vice-President,  Millard  Fillmore,  qualified 
the  next  day  as  President.  It  has  been  the  habit  to  speak 
of  Mr.  Fillmore  as  a  man  of  only  moderate  ability,  domi- 
nated and  controlled  by  his  very  able  and  experienced  cabi- 
net. The  truth  is,  he  had  already  as  chairman  of  the  Ways 
and  Means  (then  also  Appropriations)  Committee  of  the 
Twenty-seventh  CongTess,  shown  his  unusual  ability  as  a 
practical,  conservative,  laborious  legislator.  Without  being  at 
all  brilliant,  he  had  in  full  measure  the  capacity  for  labor,  for 
calm,  sane,  unimpassioned  investigation,  and  for  firm,  con- 
sistent action,  when  once  his  course  of  action  had  been  deter- 
mined upon.      He  was  a  man  of  high  character  and  indubi- 


William  A.  Graham.  6Y 

table  patriotism.  Had  not  the  majority  of  both  Houses  of 
Congress  been  adverse  to  him  during  the  less  than  three  years 
of  his  administration,  that  administration  would  have  been 
noted  for  its  constructive  statesmanship.  Many  useful  and 
salutary  measures  advocated  by  him  were  disregarded  by 
CongTess,  but  his  administration  has  to  its  credit  cheap  post- 
age, the  extension  of  the  Capitol,  the  Perry  Expedition,  the 
exploration  of  the  Amazon  and,  to  some  extent,  (he  and  his 
advisers  being  in  sympathy  with  it,  whereas  General  Taylor 
was  lukewarm,  if  not  opposed  to  it),  the  compromise  of  1850. 

Soon  after  General  Taylor's  death  his  cabinet  resigned. 
Mr.  Fillmore  selected  as  their  successors :  Daniel  Webster, 
Secretary  of  State ;  Thomas  Corwin,  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury; Charles  M.  Conrad,  Secretary  of  War;  William  A. 
Graham,  Secretary  of  the  iJ^avy ;  James  A.  Pearce,  Secretary 
of  the  Interior ;  i^Tathan  K.  Hall,  Postmaster-General,  and 
John  J.  Crittenden,  Attorney-General. 

To  this  important  office,  Mr,  Graham,  though  compara- 
tively a  young  man,  only  46  years  of  age,  came  in  the  full 
maturity  of  his  powers.  His  diligence  in  mastering  detail, 
his  capacity  for  labor,  his  accessibility  and  courtesy  to  com- 
petent advisers  and  his  sound  and  well-balanced  judgment, 
soon  made  him  an  exceptionally  efficient  secretary.  The 
measures  with  which  he  was  especially  identified  were  four : 

1st.  Reorganization  of  the  coast  survey,  making  it  more 
practical  and  useful. 

2d.  Reorganization  of  the  personnel  of  the  navy,  providing 
for  the  retirement  of  officers,  etc. 

3d.   The  exploration  of  the  Amazon. 

4th.  The  expedition  to  Japan. 

On  the  first  of  these  measures  Mr.  Benton  commented  as 
follows  in  a  letter  to  him,  dated  Pebruary  19th,  1851:  "T 
have  just  read  a  second  time  your  report  on  the  coast  survey 
subject.  I  consider  it  one  of  the  most  perfect  reports  I  ever 
read — a  model  of  a  business  report,  and  one  which  should 
carry  conviction  to  every  candid,  inquiring  mind.     I  deem 


68         !N^OKTH  Cakolina  Historical  Commission. 

it  one  of  the  largest  reforms,  both  in  an  economical  and 
administrative  point  of  view,  which  the  state  of  our  affairs 
admits  of."^ 

A  gentleman,  still  living  and  who  has  a  very  accurate 
memory,  reports  a  conversation  had  with  Com.  M.  F.  Maury 
long  after  this  period,  in  which  he  spoke  in  the  highest  terms 
of  Secretary  Graham's  efficiency,  and  his  own  sense  of  grati- 
tude to  him  for  giving  him  opportunities  to  set  out  on  his 
own  distinguished  career. 

On  the  second  of  these  measures,  Mr.  McGehee,  (Memorial 
Oration,  pages  25-6)  quotes  a  letter  of  another  distinguished 
senator :  "You  had  a  new  field  opened  to  you,  and  well  and 
ably  have  you  occupied  every  portion  of  it.  The  report  is 
to  be  properly  characterized  by  a  bold  originality  of  con- 
ception and  a  fearlessness  of  responsibility  too  rare  in  that 
class  of  state  papers.  You  have  had  to  grapple  with  a  sys- 
tem built  up  by  a  series  of  abuses,  and  to  use  the  knife — that 
fearful  and  unpopular  instrument — somewhat  unsparingly. 
If  I  do  not  greatly  err,  it  will  give  you  more  reputation  in 
the  country  than  anything  you  have  heretofore  produced 
before  the  public."  The  third  great  measure  of  his  secre- 
taryship was  the  exploration  of  the  valley  of  the  Amazon  by 
Lieutenants  Herndon  and  Gibbon.  This  was  suggested  by 
Lieut.  M.  F.  Maury.  Seeing  the  importance  of  this  venture, 
both  as  adding  to  the  world's  knowledge  of  that  remote  and 
little  kno^vn  country,  as  well  as  the  possibilities  for  trade 
with  its  inhabitants,  Secretary  Graham  readily  adopted  the 
suggestion.  His  letter  of  instruction  to  Lieutenant  Hern- 
don, February  15th,  1851,  is  characterized  by  that  famil- 
iarity with  the  details  of  the  project  and  that  clearness  as 
well  as  largeness  of  view  which  are  found  in  all  his  impor- 
tant papers. 

Of  all  the  great  measures  with  which  he  was  identified  as 
cabinet  official,  that  which  was  most  fruitful  in  results  was 
the  Perry  Expedition  to  Japan.      There  had  been  many  dis- 


J  McGehee,  26. 


William  A.  Graham.  69 

asters  among  the  fishing  vessels  of  the  United  States  on  the 
uncharted,  or  insufficiently  charted,  seas  of  the  northeast 
coast  of  Asia.  A  fishing  vessel  had  been  cast  away  on  the 
coast  of  Formosa,  and  all  its  survivors  had  been  massacred. 
Another  vessel  had  been  wrecked  off  the  coast  of  Japan,  and 
the  fifteen  survivors  had  been  cast  into  prison  and  treated 
with  great  cruelty.  The  settlement  of  the  Oregon  boundary 
dispute,  the  cession  of  California  by  Mexico,  the  discovery 
of  gold  there  and  the  completion  of  the  Panama  Railroad, 
had  aroused  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  the  promising 
aspect  of  trade  on  the  Pacific  coast  and  to  the  far  East. 
Japan  was  at  that  period  one  of  the  hermit  nations  of  the 
world.  As  early  as  December,  1850,  Commodore  Perry 
suggested  to  Secretary  Graham  the  project  of  an  expedition 
to  Japan.  Mr.  Graham,  at  once  impressed  with  the  hope- 
fulness of  the  scheme  and  its  far-reaching  consequences  if 
successful,  encouraged  the  commodore  to  confer  confiden- 
tially with  Mr.  Aspinwall,  of  iTew  York,  who  had  experience 
in  trade  to  the  East  and  had  recently  completed  the  Panama 
Railroad,  and  certain  mariners  in  Boston,  and  collect  such 
facts  and  statistics  as  might  throw  light  upon  the  subject, 
and  report  to  him.  At  this  time  the  discussion  was  kept 
from  the  public,  because  it  was  feared  that  England  or 
Erance  might  forestall  this  country,  if  information  of  these 
proposals  should  reach  either  of  those  powers.  Mr.  Graham, 
upon  receipt  of  the  information  desired,  seems  to  have  laid 
the  matter  before  the  cabinet,  but  without  their  coming  to 
any  definite  conclusion  at  that  time.  Soon  after  it  was  the 
fortune  of  an  American  vessel  to  rescue  a  number  of  Jap- 
anese in  the  Pacific  about  six  hundred  miles  from  Japan,  and 
to  bring  them  into  the  port  of  San  Erancisco.  The  admin- 
istration, upon  hearing  of  this,  quickly  realized  its  import- 
ance as  giving  an  opportunity  to  establish  friendly  relations 
with  Japan.  Preparations  were  immediately  made  to  return 
these  Japanese  to  their  home  on  a  man-of-war,  which,  leaving 
San  Erancisco,  was  to  join  the  Eastern  Squadron  at  Macao 


70  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

or  Hong  Kong.  Meantime  Com.  John  H.  Aulick  was  dis- 
patched, with  additional  vessels,  to  take  command  of  the 
Eastern  Squadron,  bearing  with  him  from  President  Fill- 
more a  letter  to  the  Emperor  of  Japan.  The  instructions  to 
Aulick,  May  31st,  1851,  drawn  by  Secretary  Graham,  do 
not  on  their  face  contemplate  a  special  mission  to  Japan. 
When  the  shipwrecked  Japanese  reached  their  home  escorted 
by  the  American  war  vessels,  the  natives  refused  to  permit 
them  to  land,  or  to  supply  the  American  vessels  with  food  or 
water.  Early  in  the  year  1852,  no  doubt  under  the  urging 
of  Commodore  Perry  and  Mr.  Graham,  the  plans  of  the 
administration  underwent  a  change.  It  was  then  deter- 
mined that  Perry  should  be  given  the  command  of  the  East- 
ern Squadron  and  that  he  should  go  with  very  considerable 
reenforcement  of  vessels  upon  a  special  mission  to  Japan. 
He  was  commissioned  on  March  21th,  1852,  preparations 
were  begam  immediately  to  fit  out  his  squadron,  and  he 
sailed  on  ISTovember  24th,  1852,  Aulick  having  in  the  mean- 
time, July  10th,  been  relieved  of  the  command  of  the  East- 
ern Squadron.  The  results  of  this  expedition  are  before  the 
world.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Governor  Graham  was 
the  prime  mover,  in  the  cabinet,  of  this  epoch-making 
adventure. 

His  services  as  Secretary  of  the  Xavy  showed  the  country 
that  lie  was  a  fine  administrator  as  well  as  an  able  statesman, 
as  much  master  of  detail,  as  he  was  capable  of  taking  whole 
views  of  great  public  questions.  The  Whig  l^ational  Con- 
vention met  in  June,  1852.  President  Fillmore,  who  was 
supported  very  earnestly  by  Mr.  Graham  and  who,  accord- 
ing to  all  the  rules  of  the  game,  should  have  been  nominated, 
led  on  the  first  ballot,  but  Mr.  Clay,  who  was  still  all- 
powerful,  threw  his  influence  to  General  Scott,  and  nomi- 
nated him.  Mr.  Graham  was  nominated  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  on  the  second  ballot,  receiving  232  votes  against 
52  for  Bates,  of  Missouri. 

ISTever  was  a  weaker  nomination  made  for  an  exalted  office 


William  A.  Gkaham.  71 

by  any  party  than  that  of  General  Scott  by  the  Whigs.  He 
was  an  able  and  virtuous  man,  but  many  of  the  salient  fea- 
tures of  his  character  approached  so  near  being  ridiculous  in 
themselves  and  lent  themselves  so  readily  to  caricature,  that 
his  candidacy,  though  a  tragedy  to  the  Whig  party,  became 
a  comedy  to  a  large  majority  of  his  fellow-citizens.  There 
was  defection,  too,  among  the  Whigs  of  the  South,  because 
he  was  thought  to  be  tainted  with  frec-soilism,  and  among  the 
Whigs  of  the  North,  because  he  was  thought  to  be  under 
Southern  influence.  The  result,  of  course,  was  foredoomed. 
He  received  only  42  out  of  a  total  of  296  electoral  votes. 

Whatever  expression  of  dissatisfaction  there  may  have 
been  at  the  head  of  the  ticket,  there  was  none  at  the  nomina- 
tion of  Governor  Graham.  His  personal  worth,  his  ability 
and  his  usefulness  were  freely  admitted  by  every  one.  In 
Pennsylvania,  however,  party  capital  was  made  against  him 
on  account  of  his  votes  on  the  Whig  tariff  bill  of  1842.  He 
generally  voted  with  the  Democrats  for  lower  rates  when  the 
measure  was  up  in  the  Senate  and  against  the  bill,  when  com- 
pleted, because  provision  for  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds 
of  the  sales  of  public  lands  was  omitted.  Notwithstanding 
the  evident  failure  of  the  Scott  campaigii,  Pierce  and  King 
carried  the  State  of  North  Carolina  by  only  603  majority. 
This,  under  the  discouraging  conditions  for  that  party  then 
existing  in  the  State,  was  a  Whig  victory,  or  rather  a  Gra- 
ham victory,  for  it  was  his  popularity  and  influence  only 
that  reduced  the  Democratic  majority  of  a  few  months  before 
of  5,564  to  603.  The  disintegration  of  the  Whig  party,  the 
symptoms  of  which  were  very  marked  in  most  of  the  other 
States,  had  also  begim  in  North  Carolina.  David  S.  Eeid, 
Democrat,  had  been  elected  Governor  in  1850.  Renomi- 
nated by  his  party  in  1852,  he  and  the  very  eloquent  and 
accomplished  John  Kerr,  the  candidate  of  the  Whigs,  had 
canvassed  the  State  on  Governor  Reid's  proposition  to 
remove  the  freehold  qualification  from  voters  for  State  Sena- 
tors,  and  in  August  of  that  vear  Governor  Peid  had  been 


72  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

reelected  by  the  largely  increased  majority  stated  above. 
This  free  suffrage  program  was  not  alone  in  nndermining 
the  Whig  strength  in  the  State,  for  voters  were  coming  more 
and  more  to  realize  that  the  only  safety  for  slavery  was  the 
continued  ascendancy  of  the  Democratic  party  in  national 
affairs. 

Governor  Graham  seems  to  have  had  no  substantial  objec- 
tion to  the  extension  of  the  suffrage.  He  was  so  much  absent 
from  the  State  after  the  subject  was  introduced  in  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  1850,  that  he  gave  the  matter  only  casual 
consideration  until  1853.  Then  he  was  opposed,  not  so  much 
to  the  policy  as  to  the  method  of  incorporating  it  in  our 
fundamental  law.  "A  constitution  of  government  for  a 
free  people,"  said  he,  ''is  a  complicated  machine,  like  a  steam 
engine  or  the  human  frame.  It  consists  of  various  parts 
adjusted  to  one  harmonious  whole.  *  *  *  In  other  and 
more  familiar  language,  it  is  a  system  of  checks  and  bal- 
ances, one  article  of  which  would  not  have  been  inserted 
without  another  on  kindred  subjects,  and  one  of  which  can 
not  be  removed  without  carrying  with  it  others,  or  deranging 
and  destroying  the  balance  of  the  whole."  He  happily  illus- 
trated this  idea,  as  follows :  "It  might  be  supposed  by  a 
superficial  observer  that  the  human  hand  would  be  improved 
by  cutting  off  the  lingers  to  equal  lengths,  and  the  operation 
would  be  so  simple  that  any  child  who  could  handle  an  ax 
could  perform  it.  And  yet  we  know  that  the  curtailment  of 
an  extremity  would  wound  nerves  and  blood  vessels  connect- 
ing with  the  brain  and  heart,  the  very  vitals  of  the  system." 
The  freehold  qualification  for  voters  for  Senators  was  incor- 
porated in  the  Constitution  of  1776  and  retained  in  that  of 
1835,  as  a  measure  of  protection  to  the  landed  interest  against 
those  who  owned  no  land,  yet  as  free  men  voted  for  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  and  so  were  represented  there. 
Land  was  much  the  more  valuable  part  of  the  possessions  of 
the  citizens  of  the  State  who  lived  in  its  midland  and  its 
west,  whereas  slaves  constituted  a  large  part  of  the  wealth  of 


William  A.  Gkaham.  73 

the  east.  By  a  compromise  between  these  conflicting  inter- 
ests, the  land  was  given  this  measure  of  protection  in  return 
for  that  given  slave  property  by  forbidding  any  other  taxa- 
tion than  the  poll  tax,  (the  same  as  that  of  the  whites),  on  all 
slaves  between  twelve  and  fifty  years  of  age, — much  less  than 
this  property  would  yield  if  taxed  ad  valorem,  as  land  was. 
Yet  the  Democrats  proposed  to  strike  down  the  protection  to 
land,  while  leaving  slave  property  still  protected,  and  pay- 
ing an  inadequate  tax.  He,  then,  met  the  plan  to  enact  the 
suffrage  amendment  only,  by  a  bill  to  submit  to  the  people 
the  question  of  a  convention  to  amend  the  Constitution,  not 
only  in  this  regard,  but  in  others  where  it  required  amend- 
ment.^ As  a  sort  of  forlorn  hope  that  he  might  stem  the 
tide  setting  so  strongly  against  the  Whig  party,  he  was 
elected  to  the  Senate  from  Orange  County  in  185-i.  On 
December  14th  of  that  year  he  made  a  very  able  speech  in 
the  Senate  elaborating  the  above  ideas.  That  the  Democrats, 
themselves,  split  a  few  years  later  on  the  question  of  ad 
valorem  taxation  of  slaves,  and  were  finally  forced  to  adopt 
it  as  a  party  measure,  is  very  strong  evidence  of  Governor 
Graham's  political  acumen. 

The  immediate  effect  upon  the  South  of  the  compromise  of 
1850,  was  quieting.  The  love  of  the  Union,  that  had  been 
weakened  by  the  agitation  which  induced  that  measure, 
became  once  more  an  active  principle  in  that  section.  The 
failure  of  some  States  in  the  Korth  to  enforce,  or  permit 
to  be  enforced,  in  their  borders,  the  fugitive  slave  law, 
(the  only  thing  which  they  yielded  in  the  so-called  com- 
promise), in  good  faith,  the  Kansas-!N"ebraska  agitation  and 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  however,  soon  aroused  both  Xorth 
and  South  as  they  had  never  been  aroused  before.  It 
became  daily  more  and  more  evident  that  Mr.  Seward's 
irrepressible  conflict  was  not  an  oratorical  exaggeration,  but 
a  stern  reality.  Men,  wise  men,  patriotic  men,  continued 
in  the  midst  of  the  turmoil  to  cry  peace,  when  there  was  no 
peace  and  could  be  no  peace.     We,  from  the  vantage  ground 


>  Senate  Journal,  1834,  70. 


74  NoKTH  Carolina  Historical  CoMiiissiox. 

of  the  present  looking  back  upon  the  past,  can  only  M^onder 
that  the  final  catastrophe  was  postponed  so  long.  That  it 
was,  is  due  in  large  degree  to  the  wisdom  and  moderation  and 
patriotism  of  the  dwindling  band  of  "Whig  leaders  in  the 
South  and  of  their  sympathizers  in  the  ISTorth.  There  is 
something  very  admirable  in  the  character  and  pathetic  in 
the  history  of  the  Old  Line  Whigs  of  the  South.  In  politics 
they  were  conservative,  but  in  all  that  concerned  the  indus- 
trial interests  of  the  country  they  were  progressives.  They 
were  as  incorruptible  as  a  Roman  senator  in  the  palmiest 
days  of  Rome.  Their  public  life  was  as  clean  and  immacu- 
late and  as  far  above  suspicion  as  Csesar  would  have  had  his 
wife.  To  them  patriotism  was  more  than  a  sentiment,  it 
was  almost  a  passion.  To  them  the  Federal  Constitution 
was  not  a  compact,  but  the  great  charter  of  an  indestructible 
Union,  the  repository  of  the  political  wisdom  of  the  ages,  by 
which  America  was  to  be  made  great  and  kept  great  through- 
out all  time.  Patriotism  to  them,  then,  assumed  a  twofold 
aspect — love  for  their  native  State  and  love  for  the  Union. 
This  blinded  them  to  that  fact  of  facts,  which  is  written  all 
across  the  history  of  the  period  immediately  preceding  the 
Civil  War,  namely,  that  it  was  either  slavery  or  the  Union. 
There  was  no  other  alternative.  If  slavery  was  to  continue, 
then  the  Union  must  go ;  if  the  Union  was  to  continue,  then 
slavery  must  go.  The  vision  of  the  secessionist  was  clearer. 
He  saw  that  he  could  not  long  hold  on  to  his  slave  property 
in  the  Union,  so  he  prepared  himself  to  hold  on  to  it  out  of 
the  Union.  To  him,  to  use  the  sharp  and  cutting  charac- 
terization of  Henry  A.  W^ise,  there  were  only  three  parties — 
the  Whites,  the  Blacks  and  the  Mulattoes:  the  Whites,  the 
secessionists ;  the  Blacks,  the  Republican  party  ISTorth ;  and 
the  Mulattoes,  the  union  men  of  the  South.  It  was  the  day 
of  the  extremist.  Events  moved  too  rapidly  for  the  moder- 
ates. They  could  not  stem  the  tide ;  they  must  move  with  it 
or  be  overwhelmed.  It  was  a  choice  between  loves,  and,  in 
agony  of  soul,  they  chose  the  greater,  their  homes,  their  fire- 


William  A.  Graham.  75 

sides  and  their  neighbors,  and  ever  after  their  faces  were  to 
the  foe.  Governor  Graham  was  one  of  the  wisest  and  noblest 
of  the  moderates.  He  loved  the  Union  scarcely  less  than  he 
did  his  native  State.  He  thought  the  southern  agitator  only 
less  to  blame  than  the  northern  abolitionist.  He  condemned 
secession  with  all  the  earnestness  of  his  nature,  not  only  as  a 
political  heresy,  but  as  essentially  suicidal  to  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  South.  So  strong  was  his  position  before  the 
country  at  large,  so  great  was  the  confidence  in  his  ability, 
his  moderation,  his  probity  and  his  patriotism  that  he  was 
supported  by  ITorth  CaroJina,  Georgia  and  several  district 
delegates  for  the  nomination  for  the  presidency  by  the  Con- 
stitutional Union  party  in  1860,  and  after  the  popular  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  fall  of  that  year,  the  ISTew  York 
and  Pennsylvania  electors  were  strongly  urged  to  cast  their 
ballots  for  him  in  the  electoral  college,  as  the  only  means 
to  avert  the  impending  dissolution  of  the  Union. 

Even  after  the  secession  of  South  Carolina  and  the  Gulf 
States,  Union  sentiment  in  North  Carolina  continued  very 
strong.  Governor  Graham  could  see  no  reason  for  secession, 
(or  revolution,  as  he  preferred  to  call  it),  in  the  bare  fact 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  election.  He  regarded  the  strong  expres- 
sions of  the  campaign  used  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Seward  and 
others,  (i.  e.,  that  the  government  could  not  endure  half  slave 
and  half  free,  that  the  question  was  whether  freemen  should 
cultivate  the  fields  of  the  ISTorth  or  slaves  those  of  the  South, 
etc.),  as  mere  oratorical  exaggeration,  rhetoric  of  the  hustings 
on  which  they  were  convassing  for  free-soil  votes.  He,  there- 
fore, very  consistently  opposed  the  calling  of  a  convention 
in  February,  1861,  and  his  course  therein  was  sustained 
by  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  State.  After  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's inauguration,  he  hoped  that  he  might  let  the  seven 
"erring  sisters  go  in  peace,"  that  he  would  convene  Congress 
in  extra  session,  acknowledge  the  independence  of  these 
States,  grant  guarantees  to  the  other  slave  States,  which  had 
adhered  to  the  Union,  that  slaverv  would  not  be  interfered 


76  I^OKTH  Caroli]N"a  Historical  Commission. 

with  within  their  borders,  and  thus  miaintain  a  happy  and 
contented  Union  of  twenty-seven  States,  instead  of  precipi- 
tating the  country  into  a  bloody  and  destructive  civil  war. 
This  seems  to  have  been  Mr.  Lincoln's  program  at  the  time  he 
offered  a  seat  in  his  Cabinet  to  Mr.  John  A.  Gilmer,  but 
later,  his  views  no  doubt  modified  as  well  by  the  current  of 
events  as  by  the  urging  of  more  bloody-minded  advisers,  he 
adopted  what  historians  now  call  the  bolder  policy;  he  called 
for  troops  to  crush  the  rebellion,  as  he  called  it.  Thencefor- 
ward Governor  Graham  saw  clearly  that  there  was  no  other 
alternative  but  civil  war,  and  that  l^orth  Carolina  must  take 
part  with  the  other  Southern  States.  He  had  no  illusions 
about  its  extent.  He  knew  that  it  was  to  be  long  drawn 
out,  destructive  and  agonizing,  with  the  South's  only  hope  a 
desire  for  peace  at  the  Korth,  or  interference  from  abroad. 
He  was  sent  as  a  delegate  from  Orange  County  to  the  seces- 
sion convention  of  May,  1861,  and  after  strenuous  efforts  to 
change  its  phraseology  so  as  to  make  it  an  appeal  to  the  ulti- 
mate right  of  revolution,  instead  of  to  the  constitutional 
theory  of  secession,  he,  with  all  other  members,  signed  the 
secession  ordinance,  after  it  had  been  adopted  by  the 
convention. 

THE  CIVIL  WAR  AND  AFTER 

Governor  Graham's  training,  his  temperament  and  his 
habit  of  thought,  would  necessarily  make  him  a  moderate  in 
any  acute  crisis,  so  though  he  sincerely  desired  the  success 
of  the  arms  of  the  Confederacy,  (he  devoted  five  of  his  seven 
sons  to  the  cause,  all  that  were  old  enough  to  bear  arms),  he 
was  in  opposition  to  its  government.  In  the  State  Legisla- 
ture, in  1863-4,  when  he  was  Senator  from  Orange,  in  the 
State  Convention  and  in  the  Senate  of  the  Confederate 
States,  he  uniformly  opposed  all  propositions  to  abridge  the 
freedom  of  the  press  or  of  speech,  to  suspend  the  privilege  of 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  to  substitute  military  for  civil 
tribunals,  or  otherwise  impair  the  common  rights  of  the 
people.     The   disastrous   defeats  of  Vicksburg  and  Gettys- 


William  A.  Geaham.  77 

burg,  and  the  consequent  declension  of  the  fortunes  of  the 
Confederacy,  made  the  people  of  North  Carolina  turn  more 
and  more  to  the  original  union  men.  Governor  Graham 
was  elected  to  the  Confederate  States  Senate  by  a  more  than 
three-fourths  majority  in  February,  1864,  and  took  his  seat 
in  May  of  that  year.  At  this  session  he,  in  conjunction  with 
other  members  of  CongTess,  labored  to  procure  the  opening 
of  negotiations  looking  to  peace,  but  unsuccessfully.  For 
the  same  object  he  labored  at  the  ensuing  session,  and  the 
Hampton  Roads  Conference  was,  to  some  extent,  due  to  his 
counsels.  After  the  failure  of  that  conference,  he  insisted 
that  a  new  commission  should  be  sent  without  limitation  of 
powers ;  for  the  independence  of  the  Southern  States  it  was 
evident  was  not  attainable,  and  if  the  administration  scrupled 
to  treat  on  the  basis  of  the  annihilation  of  their  o^vn  govern- 
ment, that  commission  might,  nevertheless,  ascertain  what 
terms  would  be  yielded  by  the  United  States  to  the  States 
concerned,  and  communicate  the  same  to  them  for  their 
action ;  but  his  exertions  in  this  behalf  were  of  none  effect. 
When  he  became  satisfied  that  it  was  the  fixed  purpose  of 
the  administration  to  make  the  recognition  of  independence 
the  basis  of  any  peace,  he  lost  no  time  in  counseling  the  Gov- 
ernor of  ISTorth  Carolina  (Vance)  to  interpose  promtly  for 
the  termination  of  the  war.  The  rapidity  of  military  opera- 
tions on  the  part  of  the  troops  of  the  United  States  did  not 
allow  adequate  time  to  render  such  interposition  effective, 
had  Governor  Vance  been  complaisant,  as  he  was  not, 
and  it  is  perhaps  fortunate  that  such  was  the  fact  and  that 
the  war  closed  when  and  in  the  manner  it  did.  Had  the 
State  intervened  at  this,  or  some  former  period,  the  disaster 
to  the  cause  would  have  been  imputed  solely  to  that  reason, 
and  ill  blood  and  angry  feeling,  crimination  and  recrimina- 
tion, would  have  been  the  consequence.  As  it  is  all  are  con- 
vinced that  the  result  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  exhausted 
resources  of  the  country  and  its  entire  inability  longer  to 
maintain  the  struggle  against  such  fearful  odds.     There  was 


78  North  Carolina  Historical,  Commission. 

left,  therefore,  no  jealousy  or  controversy  among  States  or 
individuals,  but  a  general  disposition  to  submit  as  to  a  decree 
of  fate.  This  is,  substantially,  Governor  Graham's  own 
account  of  these  transactions  in  his  petition  to  Andrew  John- 
son for  pardon,  dated  Kaleigh,  July  25th,  1865/  His 
course  shows  his  calm,  unimpassioned  wisdom  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  exciting  circumstances  in  a  very  remarkable 
light.  If  his  course  at  the  end  of  the  war,  set  out  above, 
was  erroneous,  it  was  a  virtuous  error,  founded  upon  the 
highest  of  motives,  the  desire  to  stop  the  further  eifusion 
of  blood  and  to  save  the  people  of  his  own  State  from  the 
horrors  which  marked  the  course  of  General  Sherman's  army 
through  the  other  states  of  the  South ;  this  too  when  there 
was  not  the  slightest  hope  for  a  successful  issue  to  the  con- 
test. 

He  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  by  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  1866,  but  was  not  allowed  to  take  his  seat. 
For  the  remainder  of  his  life  he  was  a  loved  and  trusted 
adviser  and  leader  of  the  people,  without  being  allowed  to 
serve  them  in  any  public  office,  for  rancorous  politicians  in 
J^orth  Carolina  prevented  the  removal  of  his  disabilities 
before  his  health  had  failed — a  very  marked  instance  of  the 
small  things  of  this  world  confounding  the  great. 

In  1867  George  Peabody  established  a  fund  of  $2,100,000, 
increased  in  1869  to  $3,500,000,  to  be  devoted  to  education 
in  the  Southern  states.  This  fund  was  placed  under  the 
control  of  fifteen  trustees,  of  whom  Robert  C.  Winthrop  of 
Massachusetts  was  chairman,  and  they  were  to  meet  annually. 
At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Winthrop,  Governor  Graham  was 
selected  by  Mr.  Peabody  as  one  of  the  original  trustees. 
Among  his  associates  in  the  management  of  this  fund  were, 
besides  Mr.  Winthrop,  Hamilton  Fish,  General  Grant,  Ad- 
miral Farragut,  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  of  Ohio,  W.  M.  Evarts 
and  William  C.  Rives,  and  later,  to  fill  vacancies.  Bishop 
Whipple,  A.  H.  H.  Stuart  and  Chief  Justice  Waite. 

1  See  also  hia  letters  in   Spencer's  "Last  Ninety  Days  of  the  War  in  North  Carolina," 
pp.  112-120. 


WiLLiAj.1  A.  Gkaham.  79 

Governor  Graham  was  wholly  in  sympathy  with  the  at- 
tempt to  reorganize  as  a  political  force  the  better  element 
among  the  white  voters  of  the  State,  regardless  of  their 
former  political  affiliations.  He  was  one  of  the  fathers  of 
the  Conservative-Democratic  party — a  flexible  and  convenient 
designation,  which  could  be  reversed  in  Democratic  com- 
munities, while  it  remained  steadfast  in  Whig.  He  presided 
over  the  political  convention  that  met  in  Raleigh,  February 
6,  1868,  and  made  a  notable  speech  defining  his  position, 
and  later  canvassed  the  State  for  Ashe  against  Holden. 

He  recognized  fully  the  brutal  folly,  if  not  criminality, 
of  the  reconstruction  program  of  Congress ;  he  was  opposed 
to  negro  suffrage,  because  he  knew  the  negro  was  not  fitted 
for  the  ballot,  yet  he  believed  in  strict  obedience  to  the  law 
and  a  patient  biding  the  time  when  the  extent  of  the  evil 
should,  itself,  work  its  owii  remedy  in  the  awakening  of 
the  public  conscience  l^orth,  and  the  arousing  of  the  people 
of  the  South  to  the  necessity  for  firm,  consistent,  united 
action  against  the  vandals  and  corruptionists  who  were  prey- 
ing upon  them.  He  condemned  the  Ku  Klux  organization, 
not  only  as  unwise,  but  as  criminal,  as  a  resort  to  extra-legal 
remedies,  that  could  be  justified  by  no  concatenation  of  cir- 
cumstances. Applying  Bacon's  definition  of  revenge,  a 
species  of  wild  justice,  to  their  deeds,  he  did  not  hesitate 
in  his  great  speech  as  leading  counsel  for  the  managers  in 
the  impeachment  trial  of  Governor  Holden,  to  describe  the 
hanging  of  Wyatt  Outlaw  "as  an  atrocious  act  of  assassina- 
tion." It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  human  wisdom  to 
devise  a  formula  beforehand,  that  will  fit  abnormal  and  un- 
foreseen conditions,  which  may  arise  in  the  future.  In  this 
assertion.  Governor  Graham  was  applying  this  formula  in  all 
its  damning  quality,  disregarding  the  abnormal  conditions 
which  rendered  it  not  strictly  applicable.  But  this  illustrates 
his  remarkable  moral  courage.  ISTever  in  his  long  public  life 
did  he  hesitate  to  do  or  say  anything,  which  he  thought  wise 
or  true,  on  account  of  any  supposed  bad  consequences  to 
himself. 


80  x^ORTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

His  health  commenced  to  fail  the  latter  part  of  1872,  and 
ill  1873  it  was  apparent  to  his  physicians  that  he  was  suffer- 
ing from  a  heart  disease  that  might  end  his  life  at  any  time. 
In  1874  he  was  selected  by  Virginia  as  one  of  the  arbitrators 
between  that  State  and  Maryland.  He  concurred  fully  with 
the  public  sentiment  in  Korth  Carolina,  which  enabled  the 
Legislature  of  1874-5  to  call  a  convention  to  amend  the  Con- 
stitution of  1868.  He  thought  that  Constitution  too  cumber- 
some, too  minute  in  its  provisions  and  too  restrictive  upon 
the  Legislature  while  placing  too  much  patronage  in  the 
hands  of  the  governor.  Orange  County  elected  him  its  dele- 
gate to  the  convention  of  1875,  but  on  August  11,  1875, 
while  at  Saratoga  Springs,  New  York,  in  the  performance 
of  his  duty  as  one  of  the  arbitrators  of  the  boundary  dispute, 
he  expired  in  the  71st  year  of  his  age. 

"The  intelligence  of  his  death  was  transmitted  by  tele- 
graph to  every  part  of  the  country.  All  the  great  journals 
responded  with  leading  articles  expressive  of  the  national 
bereavement."^  In  Xorth  Carolina  all  the  people  grieved 
at  the  death  of  its  greatest  and  most  honored  citizen.  At 
the  border  of  the  State  his  remains  were  met  by  many  of  its 
prominent  men,  and  escorted  to  Raleigh  where  they  lay  in 
state  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Capitol,  guarded  by  state  and 
national  troops,  for  hours  as  they  were  viewed  by  crowds. 
Late  that  afternoon  they  were  conveyed  to  Hillsboro,  attended 
by  the  militia  and  special  g-uards  of  honor  from  the  towns 
of  the  State,  where  they  lay  in  state  at  his  own  house  until 
the  noon  of  Sunday,  August  15th,  when  funeral  services 
were  held  over  them  at  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  in  the 
presence  of  an  enormous  concourse,  collected  from  many 
counties.    They  were  interred  in  the  graveyard  of  that  church. 

There  has  lived  in  N^orth  Carolina  no  public  man,  whose 
life  was  a  greater  force  for  good  than  was  that  of  Governor 
Graham.  It  was,  and  is,  an  exemplification  of  all  the  vir- 
tues that  a  public  man  should  have — intelligence,  industry, 


iMcGehee,  75. 


William  A.  Geaham.  81 

courage,  unselfisliiiess,  devotion  to  the  public  welfare  and  to 
duty.  Ingrained  into  his  nature  too  was  that  respect  for 
religion,  without  which  no  man  can  be  good,  as  well  as  a 
definite  faith  in  Christ,  not  only  as  a  great  moral  teacher, 
but  as  the  Redeemer  of  mankind.  He  was  a  Presbyterian 
by  inheritance  and  by  choice,  though  for  reasons  satisfactory 
to  himself,  he  did  not  enroll  himself  as  a  member  of  that 
church.  During  the  last  few  years  of  his  life  (the  writer, 
as  a  boy  had  personal  knowledge  of  this),  no  one  in  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lived,  ever  spoke  of  him  without  the 
very  tones  and  inflection  of  his  voice  showing  the  deep 
respect  and  admiration  and  regard  he  had  for  him.  The 
feeling  with  which  a  ISTorth  Carolina  Episcopalian  thirty 
years  ago  spoke  of  Bishop  Atkinson,  more  nearly  expresses 
the  regard  of  the  people  of  Hillsboro  and  Orange  County 
for  Governor  Graham,  at  that  period,  than  anything  else. 
He  was  endowed  by  nature  with  an  excellent  mind,  and  a 
noble  and  very  handsome  presence.  His  mind  was  assidu- 
ously cultivated  and  trained.  He  had  the  religious  and 
moral  instincts  by  inheritance,  and  these  gTcw  and  strength- 
ened in  the  environment  in  which  his  life  was  placed.  He 
had  no  bad  habits  as  a  boy,  none  as  a  youth  and  none  as  a 
man.  Instead  the  habits  of  thrift,  of  industry  and  thorough- 
ness became  a  second  nature  to  him.  He  was  ambitious,  but 
it  was  with  a  guided  and  controlled  ambition,  which  sought 
place  and  power  for  larger  spheres  of  usefulness.  All  these 
when  he  came  to  face  the  world  enabled  him  to  conquer  a 
place  for  himself  second  to  no  JSTorth  Carolinian.  Judge 
Murphey  was  a  gi-eater  genius,  but  he  was  not  so  practical ; 
Judge  Badger  had  greater  intellectual  endowments,  but  he 
was  not  so  industrious ;  Judge  Mangum  was  a  greater  popular 
orator,  but  he  was  self  indulgent ;  Judge  Ruffin  was  a  greater 
lawyer,  but  his  life  ran  in  a  narrower  channel ;  Judge  Gas- 
ton was  a  greater  lawyer  and  orator,  and  as  pure  in  heart 
and  life  and  conduct  as  he,  but  he  was  not  ambitious. 


82  JiToKTH  Carolina  Histoeical  Commission. 

Yet  if  the  capacity  for  taking  pains  should  be  the  test  for 
one's  gi'eatness,  Governor  Graham  was  greater  than  any  of 
these.  He  was  many  sided,  and  a  gTeat  deal  of  his  work 
remains,  and  there  is  none  of  it  that  is  not  far  above  the 
average.  He  is  entitled  to  very  high  rank  as  a  lawyer,  as  a 
public  speaker,  as  a  statesman  and  as  a  writer,  and  the  high- 
est rank  as  a  faithful,  as  a  thorough  and  as  a  conscientious 
public  official.  There  was  never  a  more  diligent  and  faith- 
ful legislator,  never  a  more  diligent  and  faithful  governor. 

He  labored,  day  and  night,  in  little  things, 
ISTo  less  than  large,  for  the  loved  country's  sake. 
With  patient  hands  that  plodded  while  others  slept, 
*  *  -x-  *  *  *  * 

Doing  each  day  the  best  he  might,  with  vision 
Firm  fixed  above,  kept  pure  by  pure  intent. 

His  addresses  on  subjects  connected  with  the  history  of 
North  Carolina,  have  the  same  qualities  of  accuracy  and 
thoroughness  that  all  his  work  has,  and  his  memorial  orations 
on  Murphey,  Badger  and  Ruffin  are  classics  in  their  per- 
fection of  form  and  taste,  and  in  their  combination  of  ease 
and  grace  with  accuracy,  strength  and  dignity. 

On  June  8,  1836,  he  married  Susannah  Sarah,  daughter  of 
John  Washington,  Esq.,  of  ]^ew  Bern,  and  by  her  had  ten 
children.  She  was  a  lady  of  rare  beauty  and  accomplish- 
ments, and  the  union  brought  to  him  as  much  of  happiness 
as  it  is  the  lot  of  man  to  know.  Mrs.  Graham  survived  her 
husband  fifteen  years,  and  their  descendants,  as  well  said 
Governor  Kitchin,  "in  the  State  to-day,  represent  the  highest 
type  of  culture,  patriotism  and  citizenship  in  the  records 
of  both  their  private  and  their  public  life,  having  the  same 
devotion  to  their  country  and  fidelity  to  their  country's  call 
as  the  illustrious  William  A.  Graham." 

As  a  fitting  close  to  this  paper,  I  give  the  estimates  of 
Governor  Graham  by  others,  most  capable  judges,  residents 


William  A.  Gkaham.  83 

of  other  States  and  associates  with  him  in  the  management 
of  the  Peabody  Fund.  In  the  resolutions  reported  by  Mr. 
W.  M.  Evarts,  and  evidently  written  by  him,  occur  the 
following : 

''The  distinguished  public  character  of  Governor  Graham, 
and  his  strong  hold  upon  the  confidence  of  the  people  of  the 
North  and  of  the  South  alike,  have  been  of  the  greatest  value 
and  importance  to  this  board  in  securing  the  sympathy  and 
cooperation  of  men  of  credit  and  of  influence  in  the  country, 
in  furtherance  of  the  beneficial  system  of  education  at  the 
South  which  Mr.  Peabody's  munificent  endowment  has  so 
greatly  aided  in  developing.  That  our  personal  intercourse 
with  Governor  Graham,  in  the  discharge  of  our  common 
duties,  has  shown  to  us  his  admirable  qualities  of  mind  and 
character ;  and  we  lament  his  loss,  as  of  a  near  friend 
and  associate,  as  well  as  an  eminent  public  servant  and 
benefactor." 

Hon.  John  H.  Clifford,  of  Massachusetts,  wrote :  "I 
should  not.fail  to  bear  my  testimony  to  his  thorough  fidelity, 
his  manly  frankness  and  his  amiable  temper,  which  had  made 
him  one  of  the  most  agreeable,  as  he  was  one  of  the  most 
useful,  members  of  the  board." 

Said  the  Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  of  the  same  State: 
"He  has  held,  as  you  all  know,  many  distinguished  offices  in 
the  service  of  his  State  and  country.  In  all  these  relations 
he  had  won  for  himself  a  widespread  reputation  and  regard, 
which  any  man,  iS^orth  or  South,  might  have  envied.  I  knew 
him  intimately,  and  have  always  cherished  his  friendship  as 
one  of  the  privileges  of  my  Washington  life.  *  *  *  JSTo  one 
of  us  has  been  more  punctual  in  his  attendance  on  our  meet- 
ings, or  has  exhibited  a  more  earnest  and  intelligent  interest 
in  all  our  proceedings,  while  his  digmified  and  genial  presence 
has  given  him  a  warm  hold  on  all  our  hearts." 

Said  Mr.  A.  H.  H.  Stuart,  of  Virginia :  "He  possessed  a 
sound  and  vigorous  intellect,  which  enabled  him  to  grapple 
with  the  most  difficult  questions ;  and  he  was  singularly  free 


84  NoETH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

from  all  those  influences  of  passion  and  excitement,  which  too 
often  disturb  the  judgment.  His  views  of  every  subject 
were  clear,  calm  and  well  considered.  He  possessed  that 
happy  balance  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  which  is  the 
parent  of  wisdom.  Although  he  has  for  more  than  forty 
years  occupied  a  prominent  position  in  public  life,  and  has 
filled  many  important  offices  during  times  of  high  party 
excitement,  no  man  has  ever  ventured  to  question  the  integ- 
rity of  his  motives  or  conduct ;  and  up  to  the  hour  of  his 
death  he  enjoyed  the  unlimited  confidence  of  all  who  had  the 
happiness  to  know  him.  *  *  *  I  have  rarely  met  a  wiser 
man,  and  never  a  better  man,  than  William  A.  Graham." 


THE  VALUE  OF   HISTORICAL   MEMORIALS  IN  A 
DEMOCRATIC  STATE 


BY   THOMAS    W.    MASON 


Ladies  and  Gentlenwn: 

Our  Historical  Commission  presents  to  our  beloved  State 
at  this  hour  the  marble  form  of  William  Alexander  Graham, 
that  it  may  stand  forever  under  the  dome  of  our  Capitol, 

One  who  is  worthy  to  speak  of  him,  his  townsman  and  his 
peer,^  has  just  now  told  us  of  this  servant  of  the  people,  with 
the  simplicity  and  beauty  of  unadorned  truth,  the  story  of  his 
life  and  service.  JSTor  does  this  story  delight  us  less  because 
it  is  a  familiar  part  of  our  later  history.  I^ot  a  few  of  us 
have  seen  this  majestic  man  moving  among  us  and  leading 
us  along  the  higher  walks  of  life.  We  saw  him  as  he  came 
out  from  the  storm  of  war  between  the  N^orth  and  the  South, 
serene,  undaunted,  pointing  the  way  of  peace  and  safety 
and  honor. 

It  all  seems  clear  enough  to  us  now.  We  look  back  along 
the  way  we  have  come,  and  we  do  not  see  now  how  we  could 
have  gone  any  other  way.  But  we  are  forgetting  how  dark 
it  was.  l^ever,  in  all  history,  did  thicker  darkness  descend 
upon  a  people,  and  so  suddenly.  A  President  had  been  slain ; 
another,  his  successor,  stood  before  us  impeached,  distrusted 
and  despised  by  those  who  had  placed  him  in  office.  Our 
State  governments  were  dismantled  and  our  States  became 
military  provinces.  Our  leading  citizens  were  in  prison  or 
their  rights  of  citizenship  denied  them.  Our  emancipated 
slaves  were  appealing  to  us,  as  never  before,  to  care  for  them 
in  their  new  relation  to  us.  Our  wasted  fields  and  homes 
remained  to  us,  only  to  remind  us  of  our  former  estate  and 
our  wretched  poverty.  The  soldiers  of  the  blue  and  the  gTay 
looked  into  each  other's  faces,   aghast  at  the  ruin  thev  had 


» Mr.  Frank  Nash,  of  Hillsboro. 


86  I^ORTH  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

wrought,  willing  and  ready  to  be  friends,  while  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Union  shook  beneath  their  feet  with  a  tremor 
more  ominous  than  the  shock  of  battle.  One  false  step,  and 
the  ruined  South  with  blinded  rage  might  pull  down  the 
pillars  of  our  government  in  the  very  strength  of  its  agony. 
We  have  called  these  dark  days  our  era  of  reconstruction. 
History  will  be  true  if  it  shall  write  above  this  chapter,  as  its 
title,  the  words  of  Thomas  de  Celano's  hymn  of  the  judg- 
ment, "Dies  irse,  dies  ilia." 

In  these  dark  days,  this  servant  of  the  people  of  whom  we 
are  thinking  now,  with  love  and  gratitude,  was  of  those  who 
saved  us  and  led  us  along  the  way  we  have  come.  He  was 
of  those  who  have  given  their  lives  to  the  service  of  the 
people.  He  was  of  those  who  loved  the  Union  of  these  States, 
and  who  gave  to  it  its  hold  upon  our  hearts.  He  was  of 
those  who  led  its  navies  into  far  distant  seas  and  made  its 
flag,  not  the  ensign  of  a  world  power  of  conquest,  but  a  mis- 
sion of  peace  and  good  will  to  men.  He  was  of  those  who 
sought  always  to  compose  the  quarrel  of  the  sections  that  its 
angry  contentions  might  not  drive  us  apart,  and  he  was  of 
those  who  loved  our  Old  i>[orth  State  with  an  unspeakable 
love,  as  the  apple  of  his  eye.  Gaston's  hymn  of  devotion 
rang  through  his  heart  always.  It  was  the  refrain  of  his 
life  and  the  inheritance  of  his  blood  from  Mecklenburg. 
And  so  it  was  that  when  he  heard  the  voice  calling  him  which 
he  had  heeded  always  as  the  voice  of  his  own  mother,  not 
doubting,  he  led  his  sons,  one  by  one,  to  the  altar  of  sacrifice, 
and  bowed  his  own  good,  gray  head  under  the  burdens  that 
were  laid  upon  him. 

Can  we  ever  think  unmoved  of  these  men  of  the  South 
who  turned,  with  sorrowing  hearts,  from  the  old  flag  to  the 
defense  of  their  homes  ?  Is  there  a  heart  so  hard  that  it  does 
not  burn  with  sympathy,  when  Lee  is  bidding  good-bye  to  his 
old  regiment  and  coming  home  to  Virginia  ?  He  had  grown 
old  in  the  service  which  he  adorned  as  few  have  done  and 
which  honored   him   above   all    others.     What   power  could 


William  A.  Gkaham.  87 

break  the  tics  that  bound  him?  We  know  that  no  political 
creed,  no  party  faction  moved  him.  It  was  the  spirit  of  the 
South ;  the  voice  of  Virginia  calling  him  to  her,  and  he  could 
not  disobey.  Like  him  was  he,  whose  lineaments  the  divin- 
ity of  art  has  now  shaped  for  us,  with  unerring  finger,  and 
whose  heroic  spirit  speaks  to  us  again  from  the  heart  of  the 
everlasting  rock,  lighted  by  the  genius  of  the  true  artist^ 
whose  soul  it  has  inspired. 

These  men  of  the  South  differed  in  their  political  creeds 
as  the  billows,  but  in  their  sense  of  duty,  each  to  his  own 
State,  they  were  one  as  the  sea.  They  were  pleading  with 
each  other  earnestly  and  anxiously  for  the  cause  of  the  Union 
when  the  war  burst  upon  them.  In  no  school  of  politics  had 
they  ever  learned  that  a  State  could  be  coerced  and  the  Union 
maintained  by  force.  They  could  not  bear  to  see  their  neigh- 
bors trampled  under  foot,  and  they  took  up  arms.  All  party 
lines  were  forgotten.  They  were  no  longer  Whigs  or  Demo- 
crats, but  henceforth  they  were  the  men  of  the  South.  What 
followed  we  know. 

They  suffered  defeat  in  battle,  but  here  and  everywhere, 
fair  women  and  brave  men  listen  with  warm  hearts  to  the 
story  of  the  part  they  acted  under  the  stars  and  bars.  ]^ot 
the  ISTorth  only,  but  the  world  now  knows  the  moral  of  their 
endeavor.  Their  peerless  captain  has  taken  his  place  in  our 
Pantheon  at  Washington.  The  name  of  their  honored  Presi- 
dent, who  suffered  in  their  stead  as  none  other  could  suffer, 
has  been  recarved  upon  our  national  tablets.  In  town  and 
village  and  neighborhood,  the  image  of  their  brother  in  arms, 
in  stone,  or  bronze,  with  silent  lips,  invokes  the  homage  of 
him  who  passes  by  and  gives  assurance  to  his  living  comrades 
that  they  shall  never  be  forgotten.  Their  struggle  has  ended. 
Let  us  believe  and  be  thankful  that  in  the  providence  of  God 
it  has  ended  well  and  with  honor  and  good  to  us  all. 

And  so,  too,  has  ended  our  era  of  reconstruction.  We 
have  rebuilt  our  Union,  and  we  pray  that,  when  the  rain 

iMr.  F.  W.  Ruckstuhl,   sculptor,  formerly    of  Alsace,  Germany,  present   address:    The 
Arts  Club,  New  York. 


88  KoRTH  CAROLiisrA  Historical  Commission. 

descends,  and  the  floods  come,  and  the  winds  blow  and  beat 
upon  it,  it  may  not  fall,  for  it  is  founded  upon  a  rock.  Slav- 
ery no  longer  mars  our  structure. 

Once  before,  in  our  earlier  history,  we  had  our  era  of 
reconstruction.  It  began  four  years  after  the  treaty  of  Paris 
of  the  20th  of  January,  1783,  which  declared  the  thirteen 
original  States  "to  be  free,  sovereign  and  independent."  It 
lasted  until  our  own  State,  last  of  them  but  one,  entered  the 
Union,  November  21st,  1789.  It  was  then  that  the  great 
convention  assembled  at  Philadelphia  on  May  25th,  1787, 
which  was  presided  over  by  Washington,  and  which,  on  Sep- 
tember 17th,  1787,  presented  our  first  Constitution  to  these 
thirteen  States  for  their  acceptance,  declaring  its  purpose 
"to  form  a  more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
to  ourselves  and  our  posterity."  It  was  then  that  Madison 
and  Hamilton  and  Jay  put  forth  those  wonderful  arguments, 
urging  its  acceptance,  which  have  become  a  text-book  of  our 
constitutional  law.  It  was  then  that  our  people,  assembled 
in  convention  at  Hillsboro,  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  on 
July  21st,  1788,  hesitated,  halted  and  adjourned,  without 
accepting  the  Constitution,  demanding  further  and  fuller 
safeguards  of  liberty.  It  was  then  that,  in  response  to  this 
demand,  these  safeguards  were  given  and  the  ten  amendments 
were  written  into  our  first  Constitution.  And  it  was  then 
that  our  people  assembled  again  in  convention,  at  Fayette- 
ville,  adopted  the  Constitution,  entered  the  Union  and  our 
first  era  of  reconstruction  ended. 

This  is  all  very  famiilar  learning.  So,  too,  the  air  that 
fills  our  lungs  and  gives  us  life  is  very  familiar.  But  we 
ought  to  repeat  this  familiar  learning,  because  it  expresses 
that  spirit  of  independence  Avhich  first  declared  itself  in 
Mecklenburg,  in  May,  1775,  and  again  in  Halifax,  in  April, 
1776,  and  which  has  been  always  the  inspiration  of  the 
higher  life  of  our  people.     We  ought  to  repeat  it,  that  he  who 


William  A.  Graham,  89 

may  write  of  us  in  the  war  between  the  North  and  South 
may  know  us  and  our  motives ;  and  how  it  was  that  these 
men  of  the  South,  who  loved  the  Union,  yet  sought  to  form 
a  Confederacy  of  their  own ;  and  when  they  could  not,  have 
striven,  as  never  men  strove  before,  to  rebuild  our  walls  and 
to  form  again  a  more  perfect  Union  of  these  States.  It 
ought  to  be  repeated  that  he  who  writes  of  us  may  understand 
how  it  is  that  these  men  of  the  South,  who  rejoice  in  the 
growth  and  strength  of  our  national  government  and  who  will 
uphold  the  honor  of  our  flag  in  peace  and  in  war,  are  yet 
sensitive  to  any  encroachment  of  Federal  power  upon  the 
rights  of  the  State ;  and  that  this  sensitive  regard  is  a  sen- 
timent of  political  virtue  and  the  safest  guardian  of  our 
form  of  government. 

It  is  well  for  us  that  we  have  begTin  a  closer  study  of  the 
forces  which  have  been  moving  and  are  still  moving  the  life 
of  our  people ;  that  in  the  midst  of  our  industry,  thrilling  us 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  its  progress,  our  thoughts  are  turning 
to  the  higher  things  of  life ;  that  our  women  and  men  of  let- 
ters have  associated  themselves  to  re-read  and  re-write  our 
history ;  that  they  have  moved  our  General  Assembly  to 
institute  our  Historical  Commission,  as  a  part  of  our  higher 
education ;  that  it  may  find  and  preserve  the  records  which 
mark  our  progress  and  point  out  to  us  those  who  have  been 
leading  and  are  still  leading  us  along  the  pathway  of  ser- 
vice and  of  honor  and  whom  we  ought  to  follow.  It  is  well 
for  us  that  our  Historical  Commission,  in  this  high  service, 
has  reminded  us  that  the  niches  provided  in  our  capitol  for 
our  good  and  faithful  servants  who  are  worthy  of  them  are 
still  empty ;  and  that  in  all  our  midst  we,  as  a  people,  have 
placed  but  one  statue  of  our  illustrious  dead.  It  is  well  for 
us  to  be  reminded  that  in  our  educational  progress,  great  as  it 
is,  we  have  left  far  behind  this  school  of  higher  learning. 
Who  of  us,  coming  northward  into  our  capitol  grounds  and 
looking  into  the  face  of  Washington,  is  not  lifted  up  into  a 
higher   realm   of  thought   and  patriotism  ?     Or  who   of  us. 


90  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

coining  westward  and  looking  into  the  face  of  Vance,  does 
not  love  our  State  with  a  deeper  love  ?  Or  who  of  us,  com- 
ing eastward  and  looking  into  the  face  of  the  Confederate 
soldier,  does  not  feel  that  it  is  beautiful  to  die  for  one's 
country  ?  Or  who  of  us,  looking  into  the  face  of  our  brave 
sailor  lad,  Bagley,  standing  midway  between  the  Father  of 
our  Country  and  the  soldier  of  the  Confederacy,  does  not 
rejoice  that  we,  too,  have  reconsecrated  the  flag  of  the  stars 
and  stripes  ? 

IsTor  is  this  school  of  higher  learning  only  a  school  of  art, 
or  of  ancestral  worship,  or  of  State  pride,  or  of  polite  letters ; 
nor  will  our  Historical  Commission  be  content  only  to  sweep 
the  dust  from  our  records  and  to  clear  away  the  moss  that 
has  gathered  upon  our  gravestones.  This  it  will  do,  but 
more.  In  its  best  service,  it  will  minister  to  the  spirit  of  our 
people ;  that  which  brought  us  together  about  our  first  shrines 
of  worship ;  that  which  was  ours  when  we  were  building  these 
States  into  the  fabric  of  our  Union ;  that  which  drew  us 
together  in  the  gTcat  contest  of  the  North  and  the  South ; 
and  that  which  will  be  needed  more  and  more  as  our  minis- 
try to  the  beauty  and  strength  and  worldwide  beneficence  of 
our  republic.  It  is  not  idle  boast  or  foolish  pride  to  say  that 
the  South  will  grow  great  and  strong  in  numbers  and  in 
riches,  and  that  the  men  of  the  South  will  yet  take  the  places 
which  they  ought  to  take  in  directing  the  course  of  our 
National  Government  and  in  preserving  the  life  of  our 
republic.  Let  us  prepare  ourselves  for  our  ministry  and  our 
duty.  Let  us  be  full-panoplied  and  armed  with  the  sword 
of  the  spirit  of  our  people ;  and  let  it  be  stainless  like  the 
sword  Excalibur  of  King  Arthur ;  aye,  let  it  be  stainless  like 
the  sword  of  Robert  E.  Lee. 

What  is  the  spirit  of  a  people  ?  May  we  not  answer : 
the  spirit  of  a  people  is  the  history  of  a  people  impersonated 
in  the  life  of  a  people.  If  there  is  no  history  of  a  people, 
there  is  no  spirit  of  a  people. 

It  has  been  asked,  Can  Africa  be  civilized  ?     Whv  not  ? 


William  A.  Graham.  91 

Because,  in  all  that  vast,  dark  continent,  with  rich  soil  and 
teeming-  millions,  save  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean, 
there  is  neither  history,  nor  tradition,  nor  a  memorial  stone 
to  tell  where  some  gTeat  deed  was  done.  There  is  no  his- 
tory of  the  people  and  no  spirit  of  the  people  upon  which  to 
build  their  social  structure.  All  effort  in  their  behalf  has 
been  in  vain.  They  are  still  naked,  and  the  lion  of  the 
jungle  is  the  ruler  of  their  land.  The  spirit  of  England, 
carrying  her  drum-beat  around  the  world,  is  the  story  and 
the  song,  not  of  Briton  only,  but  of  adventurous  Saxon  and 
Dane,  and  Boman  and  ITorman ;  the  great  composite  race 
fitted  to  sweep  over  every  sea  and  to  rule  under  every  sky. 
The  spirit  of  China  is  the  history  of  a  people  who  have  built 
about  themselves  a  wall,  over  which  others  must  climb  to  be 
their  neighbors.  The  spirit  of  our  people  is  the  history  of 
a  people  from  whose  loins  has  sprung  our  ever  widening 
confederacy  of  States ;  who  have  instituted  forms  of  govern- 
ment based  upon  the  consent  of  the  governed,  kindly  and 
gentle  and  easy  to  be  entreated,  but  firm  and  strong  to  pro- 
vide for  the  common  defense  and  to  promote  the  general  wel- 
fare and  fitted,  as  we  believe,  to  become  the  final  form  and 
pattern  of  all  nations. 

What  saved  us  in  our  dark  era  of  reconstruction  ?  It  was 
the  memory  of  Moore's  Creek  Bridge,  of  Kings  Mountain, 
of  Guilford  Court  House,  and  of  later  fields  yet  red  with 
blood ;  it  was  the  memory  of  those  who  had  subdued  our  for- 
ests and  tilled  our  fields;  of  those  who  had  written  and 
administered  our  laws ;  of  those  who  had  founded  and  fos- 
tered our  schools ;  of  those  who  had  built  our  churches  and 
kept  alive  our  love  of  God  and  our  neighbor ;  these  memories, 
rekindling  the  spirit  of  our  people,  saved  us.  Our  history 
was  still  our  own ;  its  light  was  still  upon  our  pathway. 
After  the  din  of  arms  had  ceased,  our  laws  were  no  longer 
silent ;  the  plow  moved  in  the  furrow ;  we  rebuilt  our  work- 
shops and  reopened  our  schools;  we  restored  our  fields  and 
homes  and  our  altars  of  worship ;  we  took  our  emancipated 


92  North  Caeolina  Historical  Commission. 

slave  by  the  hand,  and  taught  him  his  duty  to  the  State,  and 
how  to  share  with  us  our  history  and  our  spirit.  And  thus 
we  moved  forward  with  our  ministry  and  our  duty,  until  the 
world  wonders  how,  from  the  ashes  of  war,  we  have  grown 
so  great.  We  have  won  our  victories  of  peace  with  the 
sword  of  the  spirit  of  our  people. 

And  of  such  spirit  was  he  who  comes  to  his  place  in  our 
capitol  to-day,  first  of  his  peers  because  he  was  their  most 
flawless  type;  because  he  was  of  the  best  in  the  life  of  our 
older  Union,  and  of  our  brave  young  Confederacy,  and  of 
our  later  and  more  perfect  Union ;  because  the  history  of  our 
people  was  impersonated  in  his  full  and  rounded  life.  In  all 
the  movement  of  that  full  life  there  was  no  false  note  to  mar 
its  harmony.  Among  all  her  sons  there  is  no  clearer  ideal 
of  our  mother  State  than  he  whom  we  now  lift  up  before  us 
that  we  may  follow  where  he  leads. 

And  they,  too,  will  come  apace  and  with  cheerful  accord 
to  their  places  at  his  side ;  his  co-workers,  who  have  kept  the 
spirit  of  our  people  unbroken  and  unspoiled  through  bad  for- 
tune and  good  fortune  alike. 

Let  them  gather  to  our  capitol,  these  good  and  faithful 
servants  of  our  people,  seeing  whom,  enraptured  with  the 
story  of  their  lives,  our  children's  children  shall  cry  out 
"We  can  make  our  lives  sublime !" 


PRESENTATION  OF  THE   BUST  ON  BEHALF  OF 

THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  HISTORICAL 

COMMISSION 


BY   J.   BRYAN  GRIMES,   CHAIRMAN 


Your  Excellency: 

This  evening  marks  a  new  departure  in  historical  activi- 
ties in  North  Carolina.  The  Historical  Commission,  in 
addition  to  the  work  of  collecting  and  preserving  the  histori- 
cal records  of  North  Carolina,  is  endeavoring  to  arouse  our 
people  to  the  necessity  of  erecting  memorials  to  great  men 
and  great  events  in  our  history.  To  the  traveler  or  visitor 
here,  there  must  be  a  feeling  of  disappointment  when  he 
enters  our  capitol.  There  are  nowhere  visible  reminders  of 
those  men  who  have  made  our  history  and  brought  fame  and 
glory  to  North  Carolina — our  State  builders.  Among  his- 
torians, scholars  and  sight-seers  accustomed  to  read  the  his- 
tory and  study  the  life  of  other  States  and  nations  in  monu- 
ments and"  marble  busts,  the  absence  of  such  memorials  inva- 
riably provokes  comment. 

In  this  rotunda  are  eight  empty  niches  that  misrepresent 
our  State,  as  it  leaves  the  impression  that  we  have  had  no 
sons  sufficiently  great  to  be  commemorated  in  marble  or 
bronze. 

Eealizing  the  injustice  that  the  State  does  itself  and  appre- 
ciating the  importance  of  such  memorials,  the  Historical 
Commission,  as  agent  for  the  State,  has  had  executed  a  bust 
of  that  great  North  Carolinian,  who  it  believes  most  perfectly 
typifies  the  highest  ideals  of  democratic  citizenship — William 
A.  Graham.  And  I  have  the  honor  to  present  to  the  State  of 
North  Carolina  this  bust  of  that  great  Carolinian  whose 
character  was  as  spotless  and  clean  as  the  Carrara  marble 
from  which  this  image  is  carved. 

We  trust  this  is  but  a  beginning  and  that  the  people  of 
North  Carolina  will  soon  show  enough  appreciation  of  her 
other  great  sons  to  fill  the  other  seven  niches  in  this  rotunda. 


94  North  Carolina  Historical  Commission. 

ACCEPTANCE  BY  THE  GOVERNOR  Of  NORTH   CAROLINA 

Mr.  Chairman: 

With  all  others  in  this  magnificent  audience,  I  listened 
with  great  interest  to  the  appropriate  addresses  of  the  gifted 
historian  from  Orange  and  the  distinguished  orator  from 
iSTorthampton,  delivered  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  we  have  now  heard  with  pleasure  your  own 
eloquent  words  of  presentation. 

I  congratulate  you  and  through  you  the  Historical  Com- 
mission upon  the  excellence  of  your  choice  for  the  first  bust 
for  this  rotunda  of  our  capitol.  I  share  with  you  the  hope 
that  other  similar  occasions  shall  soon  follow  when  other  busts 
of  our  gi'eat  Carolinians  shall  take  their  places  in  the  other 
niches. 

If  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generation,  I  am  happy  to  believe  that 
there  is  truth  in  its  counterpart,  and  that  the  virtues  of  the 
fathers  are  likewise  visited  upon  the  children  to  the  third 
and  fourth  generation.  No  family  in  our  commonwealth, 
through  so  long  a  period,  through  so  many  generations,  has 
rendered  the  State  more  significant,  faithful,  honorable  and 
effective  service  than  the  Graham  family.  From  the  Revo- 
lutionary period  to  this  good  day,  its  part  in  our  military  and 
civil  life  has  been  nobly  performed.  Its  members,  repre- 
senting the  highest  type  of  cultured  and  patriotic  citizenship, 
worthily  exemplify  in  their  records,  in  both  public  and  pri- 
vate life,  Governor  Graham's  illustrious  devotion  to  the  State, 
and  with  dignity  rejoice  in  his  useful  and  eminent  career. 
Their  race  is  not  yet  run,  and  their  pledges  to  fortune  and 
futurity  are  all  that  worthy  veneration  for  ancestry,  moral 
integrity,  intellectual  strength,  and  love  of  right,  purity  and 
country  can  suggest. 

Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  with  pleasure  that  in  behalf  of  North 
Carolina,  I  accept  from  the  Historical  Commission  this  mar- 
ble bust  of  Governor  William  Alexander  Graham.  Permit 
me  to  express  the  hope  that  the  selections  for  the  remaining 
niches  will  be  as  wiselv  and  as  fittinfflv  made  as  this  one. 


